On May 27th at Sonic City in Omiya, Saitama, Japan, the Sonic City film and animation center
held a screening of anime aimed at children.
The tickets displayed each of the characters that would be screened.
Some are based on folk tales and others on modern characters like Anpanman One panel
mentions "Super Mario."
I didn't know what to expect and I thought it might be the 1986 anime "The mission to
save Princess Peach."
When it came time for the show though, I was wrong.
It wasn't that movie at all.
In fact, it was something none of us have EVER seen before!
The short anime film, which was about 10 minutes in length was called "Super Mario koutsuu
anzen" which in English means "Super Mario Traffic Safety."
The film is considered lost by two other YouTube channels, everything Super Mario and Kiddo
Cabbusses.
They were very interested in finding out about the screening.
I took it upon myself to do some research about this movie.
A google search in English only leads to the everything super Mario channel which has practically
every other mario anime.
A Japanese search turns up one photo, presumably the cover of the box.
This was posted on twitter by a user named Pirohiko.
So why is this movie lost?
And what's it about?
The short was made in 1989 alongside super Mario Fire Brigade and these shorts were shown
to schoolchildren in Japan to teach them important lessons.
It's possible more exist beyond these two but I can't confirm it.
Super Mario Fire Brigade has been preserved as you can see here.
But the only way you could get a copy was to buy one from the anime distributor in 1989
and they ONLY sold them to schools.
They were NEVER sold to the general public.
No one knows exactly how many copies were made.
Also the copy that I saw was on a film projector.
VHS may exist, but over time one has to assume that the film strips and cassettes wore down
and broke over time and some were probably thrown out as schools transitioned to DVD.
So what's the story about?
A young boy and his sister are playing Super Mario Bros 3 on the Family Computer when their
mother calls and tells them to come to shop she works at by the time she finishes work.
Time goes by and the boy is still playing games while the girl gets impatient and leaves
without him.
But she's too young to know where the shop is and gets lost.
The mom goes looking for them as they haven't come yet and the boy realizes his sister is
gone and goes running to look for her.
He almost gets hit by a car.
A Benz Unimog at that.
Mario is the driver and gets out and tells him to be careful.
Meanwhile the bowser finds the girl and she gets scared and runs to a police officer.
The family eventually reunites and the girl sees bowser again and tells the police officer,
which makes him run away.
Bowser runs out into traffic and Mario kicks him out of the way.
Then there's a review of safety tips like "don't talk to strangers" and "always look
both ways before crossing."
With the lessons learned Mario says goodbye and flies away tanooki style.
The company who held the expo may have the only surviving copy.
I am trying to track it down and if I ever do, I'll play it all here in full.
I did manage to capture some but not all, in the theatre so take a look at an anime
short the internet has never seen.
If you work at a school in Japan, look around, see if a copy is still around somewhere and
help preserve this lost film