Girls With Comics

Earlier today Peter Fernandez, the voice actor for Speed Racer, passed away. He also wrote the catchy theme song for the dub, as well as directed the English language cast. Fernandez also worked on other anime such as Astro Boy, Lupin the Third, Starblazers, and others. His contribution to anime in America is great, and it’s a shame American anime outlets didn’t acknowledge him more.

Fernandez landed the Speed Rracer gig, because he was a ghost writer for the Astro Boy and Gigantor English language scripts. He also edited and changed Speed Racer from its original Japanese format, to be acceptable for American audiences. He never knew the lasting impact Speed Racer would have on audiences across the world at the time. Speed Racer may be more or less a forgotten anime to your standard anime and manga fans (albeit he was at Otakon 2008, and he did get some attention there.) but the general American populace still acknowledges the series.

RIP

-Lauren

Tags: Lauren

This entry was posted on July 16, 2010 at 8:17 am and is filed under Anime/Manga, General Geekery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.