Sonic Boom: A timeline

"And if it weren't for those meddling kids I would have gotten away with it "is a iconic line of the animated TV show Scooby-Doo from the Hanna-Barbera studios. On first glance the show and Sonic have not much more in common than being animated, popular in the sixties and being designed by a Japanese man.
But there is another connection, the writer of Scooby-Doo had the habit of rehashing the same storyline over and over again. Scooby and the four teenager members of the Mystery, Inc. gang: Fred, Shaggy, Daphne and Velma, arriving to a location in the "Mystery Machine" and encountering a ghost, monster, or other supernatural creature, who was terrorizing the local populace.
After looking for clues and suspects and being chased by the monster, the kids come to realize the ghost and other paranormal activity is actually an elaborate hoax, and capture the villain and unmask him. Revealing him as a flesh and blood crook trying to cover up crimes by using the ghost story and costumes.

Well, this is not the story of old man Higgs and the abandoned gold mine but it is the story of old man Matsutarō and his amusement park. Most people know Matsutarō Shōriki (正力 松太郎) as the founder of the magical place called "Sonic's Adventure Park", where all your (PG rated) dreams come true. But like in all good Scooby Doo stories there is a Nightmare to be found.

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If you can dream it, you can do it.
(Matsutarō Shōriki)​

But first lets talk about the Matsutarō Shōriki our parents knew and we all learned to love when we grew up. Matsutarō was a media mogul, he owned the Yomiuri Shimbun, one of Japan's major daily newspapers, and founded Japan's first commercial television station, Nippon Television Network Corporation. He was also elected to the House of Representatives, appointed to the House of Peers and was one of the most successful judo masters ever, reaching the extremely rare rank of 10th Dan. Matsutarō organized an All-Star team in 1934 that matched up against an American All-Star team and faced hard retribution for his courage. Due to an assassination attempt from right-wing nationalists for allowing Americans to play in Jingu Stadium Matsutaro received a 16-inch-long scar from a broadsword.
He also, apparently with the help of the CIA, established the distinctly pro-US nationwide commercial television network (NTV) after the war and introduced nuclear power plants using US technologies across Japan. No wonder America's public could fall in love with this man, he was our best friend all along. But what really elevated him to an iconic grandfatherly status was his love for Sonic. When he opened Sonic's Adventure Park and said "You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality." it sounded sincere.

The first time the concept for Sonic's Adventure Park began after Matsutarō Shōriki visit of the Fifth National Industrial Exhibition which was held in Osaka in 1903. It was originally intended to simply showcase Japan's economic prowess to the world.
Events were held even during the night for the first time in the history of Japanese exhibitions, with illumination provided at the venue. A big fountain was highlighted with five different colors, and the Obayashi Tower, fitted with an elevator, drew crowds en masse. These items indicated that Japan had fully entered into the electric age. Also popular were entertainment facilities, including a water chute near the pond of Chausuyama, a merry-go-round, the World Panorama Building, the Wonder Building (featuring a fantastic dance performance using electric lamps and gunpowder, as well as demonstrating technologies regarding wireless telegraph, X-rays, and moving pictures), and a large-scale circus.
The aquarium in Sakai was a permanent two-story building. After the end of the exposition, the facility was much loved as Sakai Suizokukan (Sakai Aquarium) by the people of the city. Many of the buildings were closed at night, but the event still drew many visitors even at night with its illumination and entertainment performance. As a result, the number of the visitors to the exposition was the largest since the beginning of the National Industrial Exhibitions in Japan.

While the original purpose was to promote domestic industries, the Japanese National Industrial Exhibitions began to shift their focus to the economic effects generated by the consumption and other activities by the visitors. Actually, the fifth National Industrial Exhibition brought Osaka City huge economic benefits. Thus, these events began to be regarded as an important measure for promoting city revitalization, further raising expectations that an international exposition would be held in Japan. Some people proposed that the sixth National Industrial Exhibition scheduled for 1907 should be held as an international exposition. Facing financial difficulties following the Russo-Japanese War, however, the sixth event was postponed with its cost-effectiveness for industrial promotion called into question, and was eventually canceled. Subsequently, expositions were held only on a prefectural level.

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Osaka Industrial Exposition in 1903

All this spectacle deeply impressed the young Matsutarō, he was just eighteen year old at the time when he visited the exhibition together with his family but never forgot what he saw, not even fifty years later when he vividly recounted his experience. It also awakened a life long yearning to bring back the the fun and innocence back to Japan, to invite the world, to create a place of true adventure, which was so rare on the culturally humongous, isolationist island. The fact that he saw a legitimate business opportunity sweetened the deal even more.
A first step in this direction of bringing Japan back into the world was made when he heavily promoted the new Sonic anime series on his network and helped to sell it to the US using his (at the time mostly unknown CIA connections) as part of a good will and friendship campaign. The effort was very welcome, since America realized during the disatrous Korean War how much it needed an Asian Allie against Red China and the Soviet menace. Shortly after the series began to air, he heared how many people wrote letters to his TV station expressing their wish to to visit the studio that produced it. Matsutarō realized that a functional animation or television studio had little to offer to the visiting fans. Thus he began to foster ideas of building a site located in Urayasu, Chiba near Tokyo for tourists to visit. His initial idea evolved from a small play park with a boat ride and other themed areas in the end his "Sonikku the Hedgehog Park" grew into the giant 46.5 ha theme park we know and love today and paved the way for other more or less successful emulators like the Fleischer Studio's Superland.

But under the guise of the friendly old man and amusement park owner, there was a Class A war criminal. Conveniently committed form press coverage, Matsutarō enjoyed his last years in peace, undisturbed, never haunted by his past, reveling in the fantastic reputation his expanding international media and entertainment empire. Only in the mid seventies the facade began to crack, when after his death a group of young hippie styled journalist, right out of the van began investigating Matsutarō Shōriki life. Their documentary “Bloody Blue Spines” hit the theater just at the perfect time, when cynicism and disillusionment with the establishment after the Watergate Affair was at an all time high. Icons were thrown off their pedestals left and right by the cheering mass of revolting youth and Matsutaro was no exception.

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Poster of "Bloody Blue Spine" DVD Version of 2007

Thankfully Sonic survived the torrent of bad press relatively unscathed, since he was Osamu was able to distance his and Fujiwara's creation in the mind of the public. While all traces of him have been removed in the rest of the world Matsutaro statute is greeting visitors of the original park in Japan.
 
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