Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66, From Kobe to Kill Bill

Kill Bill, Volume 1 opened in American theaters on October 10, 2003. Uma Thurman's Bride fights her way through the Crazy 88 in a yellow tracksuit with black stripes, Quentin Tarantino's homage to Bruce Lee in Game of Death, and on her feet is a pair of yellow sneakers with black stripes. Most people will tell you they were Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66s. The company timeline on Onitsuka Tiger's Wikipedia page calls them Tai-Chi shoes. The argument has never been settled, and it barely matters. The film sold the Mexico 66 to a generation that had never heard of Kobe.

A Basketball Shoe Company in Kobe

Kihachiro Onitsuka set up Onitsuka Shokai in Kobe in 1949 and reorganized it as Onitsuka Co. the same year. The brand's first basketball shoes followed, and by 1953 the Tiger mark was on a split-toe marathon shoe, the Marathon Tabi. In 1960 the company released the Limber Up, a training shoe, and an updated version came out in 1961.

That 1961 shoe matters more than its name suggests. On Onitsuka Tiger's own history page, the updated Limber Up is listed as the prototype for the Mexico 66. Plenty of retailers and blogs instead say the ancestor was a 1966 model called the Limber. Treat the family tree as disputed. What's certain is that the shoe sold today under the name Mexico 66 was a 2002 reissue, which means the name is younger than the shoe by several decades.

Stripes for Mexico City

The stripes came in 1966. Onitsuka held an internal design competition, and the winner was two pairs of crossing lines on the side of the shoe. It was called the Mexico line, and the target was the Olympic Games coming to Mexico City in 1968. The company's own timeline says the Limber Up was the first shoe to wear them. Onitsuka also made the official shoes for Japan's delegation in 1968, in red and white.

The mark outlived the company that drew it. The stripes later moved onto ASICS shoes, and a version of them sits on the side of most ASICS runners today, including the Gel-Kayano 14.

The Nike Detour

In 1964 Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman founded Blue Ribbon Sports, the company that became Nike, to import Japanese running shoes. Those shoes were Tigers, and they held their own. When Runner's World published its first shoe guide in 1967, Tiger models rated well. Bowerman also worked on designs for Onitsuka, and one of them became the Cortez. By the early 1970s the partnership had soured into a lawsuit, and a judge let both sides keep selling the shoe while Blue Ribbon kept the Cortez name. Onitsuka sold its version as the Corsair. Nike went on to the Air Force 1 and everything after it.

Onitsuka went the other way. In 1977 it merged with GTO and JELENK to form ASICS, an acronym from the Latin phrase anima sana in corpore sano, a sound mind in a sound body. The Onitsuka Tiger name went quiet for the next twenty five years. One piece of the old company stayed in place, though. Onitsuka had set up a European base, Onitsuka Tiger GmbH in Düsseldorf, West Germany, back in 1975.

Why Did Yellow Win?

ASICS brought Onitsuka Tiger back in 2002, first in Europe, as a fashion label rather than a sports brand. The reissues were the Mexico 66, the Ultimate 81 and the Nippon 60. A year later came the first directly run Onitsuka Tiger store, in Tokyo, and then Kill Bill. In 2008 the company added Nippon Made, a range manufactured and finished in Japan.

Bruce Lee's shoes in Game of Death are argued over too. Some say they were Mexico 66s or Tai-Chis, and the Mexico 66 Wikipedia entry describes them as a generic yellow and black pair with different stripes. Either way, Tarantino was quoting Lee, and the yellow pair has belonged to both men ever since.

The shoe itself is the reason the revival keeps working. It is low, narrow and nearly flat, with a thin sole and a slim leather upper that sits close to the foot. In the early 2020s it became a staple again, worn by people who wanted something slimmer than a chunky runner. It does the job the adidas Samba does, only slimmer and in louder colors. Wear it with straight or wide trousers that break on the shoe and leave the yellow pair to people who can take the attention. A white pair with blue stripes is the easier daily shoe.

Onitsuka Tiger keeps its own 75th anniversary history, and the Mexico 66 Wikipedia page covers the film connection. For more Japanese labels with long memories, see heritage brands, our coverage of Japan and the full sneakers section. Japanese making with an even longer memory is in our Kyoto craft guide.

The shoes Onitsuka made for Japan's team in 1968 were red and white. The yellow came later, by way of Hollywood.