Kobura/Space Adventure Cobra/Súper Agente Cobra

Chicks & Adventure.

Continuing with Animé that brings joy & nostalgia to the connoisseur, we leave the sassy 70's to enter the early 80's with one magnificent Animé that combined the best of Star Wars, James Bond, and 70's sexploitation: Space Adventure Cobra! 

Kobura, AKA Space Adventure Cobra is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Buichi Terasawa. Set in the far future, the series tells the story of freelance space agent Cobra, who lived an adventurous life until his enemies began to hunt him down. Cobra surgically altered his face and erased his own memory in order to hide from his foes and lead a normal life. Eventually, he regains his memories and re-unites with his old partner Lady Armaroid and his ship Tortuga. Cobra travels the galaxy, fighting the outlaw Pirate Guild, but also fleeing the law-enforcing Milky Way Patrol. Along with his charm and wit, Cobra survives thanks to his Psycho-Gun, a unique weapon embedded in his left arm.

The manga was originally serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1978 to 1984. The individual chapters were collected and published in 18 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. The Cobra manga spawned various sequel manga series, one-shots, a feature-length anime film, two anime series —a 1982 anime with 31 episodes retelling the film's story and a 13-episode broadcast in 2010—, two original video animations (OVAs), audio albums, video games, and other merchandise. In 2010, the production of a live-action film was announced by Alexandre Aja.

it's a man's job.

Whatever you say ma'am!

Space Adventure Cobra, The OVA

TMS Entertainment adapted the manga into a film titled Space Adventure Cobra, which was released on July 23, 1982 in Japan. Manga Entertainment released the film in the United Kingdom in 1995. The Manga Entertainment version's dub had an alternate soundtrack from the pop group Yello. It was released in American theaters on August 20, 1995 by Tara, and later distributed by Urban Vision in VHS format on June 16, 1998. The film was released in the Australasian region by Madman Entertainment on December 5, 2007. On April 8, 2008, Manga Entertainment re-released it. Discotek Media released the film in the United States to DVD on August 21, 2012. Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" music video used footage from the film, and become one of the most-watched videos on MTV.

Space Cobra, the Animé

The series was later adapted into an anime adaptation titled Space Cobra. Loosely based in the first eight volumes of the manga, it was directed by Osamu Dezaki, and aired on Fuji Television between October 7, 1982 and May 19, 1983. The Space Cobra anime was later released in box set form on October 25, 2000 by Digital Site. The series was licensed for a DVD release and digital distribution by Right Stuf's publishing division, Nozomi Entertainment, who plans on releasing the series in two subtitled sets beginning in Northern America; the first one will be available on March 4, 2014. The Animé was known as Space Cobra mostly in English speaking countries. In Europe it was just known as Cobra & in Latin America it was known as Súper Agente Cobra.

   

This series is James Bond in Space. Quite ridiculous as far as realism goes but has that "I'm too cool for school" attitude. The way I see it, Space Adventure Cobra was back then, what date sims are today. For some reason, all retro sci-fi series pictured the far future as a vast harem of skimpy clothed women the all-mighty lead captain must fight and save from ugly aliens, so he can have sex with them. Well, this erotic/ romantic picture gave place to more serious and realistic forms of sci-fi, while the erotism was replaced by fancy erogames and romance was replaced with mild arlekin stories for middle-aged housewives. Hm, time changes everything. Anyways…

Not your average hero.

Don't touch my babes!

What Cobra is about.
 

Oh, Cobra, what a big laser you got!

Well, being a retro-flavored series, means it doesn’t take itself seriously. Just find an excuse for the lead to save some chick, explain the situation in the old days of corny sci-fi and throw in some funky showdowns with weird supernatural aliens and you have yourself a formula any toddler or 40 year old would like. Think of it like a film-noir, where the detective is a cool looking, aloof, half-funny, unrivaled space pirate, taking dangerous missions just for the fun of the adventure… or just so he can have fun with the various femme-fatals running around half-naked around the universe.

The structure of the plot is separated into individual story arcs/mission. Like some James Bond clone, Cobra will be relaxing in his spaceship before someone (usually a chick) asks him to find something or save someone by ruthless pirates and planetary tyrants. So, Cobra will use his super-special-awesome Psycho Gun ™ to blast through armies of identical mook underlings and have a standoff with their leader, who so much happens to have some queer power. Usually Cobra’s robot companion (no surprisingly, also a mechanical chick) gives him info and ways to defeat him, save the day and have a nice off-screen sexual evening with some beauty… sometimes even with a lot of beauties at the same time, way to go Cobra!

That’s pretty much it. There is no overall objective purpose, no real plot continuity and the initial scenario is just teasing. It is pretty generic and predictable, although not repetitive all the times.

a hero can  be anyone.

Are you talking to me punk?

CAST
 

Hey babe, wanna ride my spaceship?

The characters all come by some really lame stereotypes and frankly speaking, you should like them for being exactly the stereotypes they are. Down to it, this anime does not have much of a story or memorable characters. It plays along that lost retro feeling of oldies like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. It is only good as a nostalgic trip back to time where space was full of air, aliens had one eye and women had no shame to walk around wearing barely enough to hide their boobs and ass.

 

PRODUCTION VALUES 

 
In similar tradition, animation and sound have high values for such a series. Although not super by today’s standards, they have exactly what this sort of series needs. Funky spaceships, weird alien worlds, a Psycho Gun and lots of bare skin. Almost like an American b-movie, it has lots of action, many explosions and corny dialogues that never make you think what the hell you are watching and just absorb you to a silly yet enjoyable fantasy. As usual, the villains won’t be able to hit a target two meters next to them, yet Cobra can use his super laser which can bend its rays anyway he likes to kill a dozen mooks hiding in different places and behind steel walls with one shot while safely hiding behind a wooden wall, which is impregnable to their machineguns. Yes, the battles are THAT fair. And no, no bold sex scenes and yet not that lame harem kind of humor with chickenshit boys and tsundere girls. Cobra is wild and offensive and slaps a bitch when she doesn’t listen to him… And she loves it and wants to have sex with him. Hooray for Phallocracy!

Ok, I'll fuck you if it makes you feel better.

Ready for some space action!

As you can probably guess with all I am writing so far, this series is not meant for women as it depicts them quite frail, defenseless and objects of desire… Just like in real life. (kidding of course) anyways, if you have a thing for retro Animé, Cobra will definitely make you smile and enjoy space adventures with sexy girls all over.

Here's the Latin American opening for the original Space Cobra animé:

Here are the two opening sequences for the 2010 Animé sequel  Cobra the Animation:

Daikiu Maryu Gaikingu/Divine Demon Dragon Gaiking/Gaiking/El Gladiador

More robots, more action!

In 1976, Toei gave us Gaiking, yet another story of a prodigious athlete, baseball player Sanshiro Tsuwabuki! Well, actually, maybe it is about broken limbs, because during Sanshiro’s debut game in the Japanese big leagues, alien assassins break his wrist with baseball-firing sniper rifles. Seeking bloody, wrist-breaking revenge for his ruined career, Sanshiro becomes the pilot for a giant robot (Gaiking) that converts into the golden metal skull of a chubby dinosaur spaceship (Great Space Dragon). The chubby dinosaur spaceship itself is piloted by complete jerk (and sole American character) Pete Richardson.
Living within this chubby dinosaur are three smaller robot dinosaurs: a pterodactyl (Skylar), a triceratops (Bazoler), and some kind of brontosaurus-with-wings (Nessar, as in “Nessie The Loch Ness Monster”), piloted by the Getter Robo-esque trio of a Hong Kong kickboxer, a sumo-wrestling pickpocket vagrant, and Fat Guy. We round out cast with the Crusty Scientist, The-Girl-With-A-Tragic-Past, and the Little Boy Sidekick. An innovative addition is science officer Gen Sakon, who doesn't really fit into the standard super-robot roles; he is super-smart, kind and always comes up with plans to beat the bad guys or finding weaknesses in enemy robots when Sanshiro's raw violence and telekinetic powers aren't enough. He's basically Mr. Spock without the superiority complex.

Are you talking to me?

You may be thinking, “Wow, this sounds like a really generic super-robot show,” and I do have to admit it shares a lot of elements with other ‘70s robot-fighting adventures. However, the way I look at it, Gaiking is the pinnacle of the Toei ‘70s super-robot mountain. Director Tomoharu Katsuma worked on Mazinger Z (Tranzor Z), Great Mazinger, UFO Robo Grendizer (Goldorak/Goldrake), and Getter Robo and most of the staff were anime veterans. The exception is Dan Kobayashi, the robot designer for the show. While the basic concepts of the Great Space Dragon and Gaiking as his head were already there before he came aboard, Kobayashi is the one who have to thank for the look of Gaiking and his dinosaur pals. We also need to talk about Akio Sugino (Ashita no Joe, Aim for the Ace!, Jetter Mars), who Toei credits with the creation of Gaiking, along with Kobayashi and Kunio Nakatani (sometimes rendered as Nakaya).

Notice I said, "Toei credits." The actual creator of Gaiking was under dispute. Toei gives a vague credit of "Collaboration (Episodes 1-22)" to Dynamic Kikaku, Go Nagai’s company. Dynamic worked with Toei on many shows—not just the Mazinger and Getter Robo shows but also Devilman, Steel Jeeg, and Cutey Honey. The story goes that Go Nagai came up with the original concept (which is pretty believable considering how closely it hews to previous Dynamic robot shows), but Toei chose not to credit it to him. This soured their relationship, and Dynamic soon refused to work with Toei. This part is definitely confirmed; go look at how many Dynamic shows were produced with Toei before 1976 and how many after.

The enemy.

The great Dragon crew.

Apparently Go Nagai sued Toei and won his credit after a ten-year battle. (I've only seen Italian language sources about the court case, so take it with a grain of salt, though William Winckler, the producer of a recent English version of Gaiking stated that Toei told him Go Nagai was hard to work with.) It is also perhaps telling that in the Gaiking remake from a few years ago features zero characters or storylines returning from the original. The only thing tying it to the 1976 Gaiking is the robot design.

Legal issues aside, Gaiking has a killer staff that knows they are doing. Gaiking is in many ways a refinement of what can before. 1972's Mazinger Z features a Koji, a hot-blooded robot pilot, his comedy relief fat guy sidekick, his spunky female counterpart, no less than six crusty scientists, and freakish monsters that have mangled anatomies. Gaiking repeats all of these ideas, but cuts down the number of scientists, which I think is probably a good move. How many mad scientists does one show need? I can't even remember the sidekick scientist trio's names without looking them up. 

Of course, Gaiking's creators know what's funny, so they increased the fat guy count to two. They even have a villain, Dark Horror Army leader Darius, whose unnatural upside down head (with a mustache that may also be eyebrows) fits well with the tortured anatomies of Dr. Hell's underlings, the twisted half-tiger, half-man Archduke Gorgon from Great Mazinger, and the Grendizer villain Gandal, whose face splits open to reveal the nagging pint-sized wife that lives in his face. The original Getter Robo show from 1974 had one pilot who was a soccer player, one who was a judo expert, and one who was a murderous lunatic. Hey, murdering people can be athletic, right? Anyway, Gaiking has a baseball player, a kickboxer, and a sumo wrestler. Of course, replacement fat guy Benkei from Getter Robo G was also a baseball player. Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger did not have athletes at all (unless you consider motorcycle riding athletic), but sports heroes as robot pilots was an ongoing theme in 1976.

Don't worry planet Earth, I'm a trained baseball hero!

Gaiking in action!

While Grendizer, Getter Robo G, and Steel Jeeg were still running that year, Gaiking was the epitome of the Toei super robot show. After they lost the support of Dynamic, Toei went on to produce several mediocre shows (Barattack, Space Guardian Daikengo, Future Robo Daltanius). The only post-Gaiking Toei robot show of note is Danguard Ace, also directed by Tomoharu Katsumata, but with Leiji Matsumoto's love for spaceship and disdain for robots, the show has an uncomfortable tension that doesn't really work. It's true that after 1976 Toei found success with space operas (Galaxy Express 999, Captain Harlock, SF Saiyuki Starzinger), but the golden age was over. If Mobile Suit Gundam was the bullet that killed super robots, the break-up of Dynamic and Toei was the gun.

Here's the original 1978 toy commercial of the "Shogun Warriors" which, in essence were Mazinger & Gaiking:

Here's the original japanese opening:

Here's the American opening:




 
Here's the Latin American opening. However, this opening sequence was used as the ending of the series since it was a part of the "Festival de los Robots" which had its own opening featuring scenes from the four series it had. This happened also with Steel Jeeg, Starzinger & Gakeen. The original opening sequences were used as the ending for each of these Animé.

Here's the opening for the "Festival de los Robots" featuring images from Gaiking, Steel Jeeg, Starzinger, and Gakeen:

Esu Efu Saiyuki Sutajinga/Sci-Fi West Saga Starzinger/Spaceketeers/El Galactico

Heroes from a future far, far away.

Esu Efu Saiyūki Sutājingā is a space adventure anime series that aired in Japan from 1978 to 1979. During the early 80's, the series was broadcasted in several contries from Europe, Latin America and North America. Also, as you can guess now, the series was retitled depending on the country it was broadcasted.

Like many Animé, Starzinger is essentially a Sci-fi space opera retelling of the shenmo fantasy novel Journey to the West, a Chinese literary classic written by the Ming Dynasty novelist Wu Cheng'en. The Sci-fi twists were designed by world famous Animé artist Leiji Matsumoto based on the Terebi Magazine manga with art by Gosaku Ohta.  

Princess Aurora, the one.

The story revolves around the Galaxy energy concept, which is a rip-off from the Star Wars force concept with slight differences. As the universe is becoming more and more unbalanced (Star Wars again) Princess Aurora is chosen by the Empress to go on a mission to The Dekos System in order to restore the energy and create peace in the galaxy (Star Wars!) She is accompanied by three very different cyborgs (partly humans with extraordinary powers), they are Cogo (Jesse Dart) he is the most powerful amongst the three with superhuman strenght, speed and agility and of course he has got the Astrobat a very very powerful weapon that is almost a part of himself, he also can increase and decrease his size or make a holographic double of himself. Then there is Haka (Porkos) he is the clumsy somewhat stout person of the group, his weapon is called the Star Chain, only I rarely see him do anything useful with it. Third in line is Darco or Arimos (Giorgio), you could say he is the brain of the group he also has got a weapon of his own the Tridenceral, though not even nearly as powerful as the Astrobat.

Our heroes' mothership.

Starzinger aired in the early 1980s in Latin America as part of the four-series show "Festival de los Robots" which featured similar Animé series.

In North America, it aired as "Spaceketeers" as part of the package show Force Five. As the "Journey to the West story" is not well known in the region, the characters were renamed to reference the Three Musketeers. To also fit into the Force Five time slot, the show had to be edit-squeezed into 26 episodes. The US version puts them on a mission to the Dekos Star System which contained evil powers changing peaceful creatures to evil mutants. The Force Five version not only just produced 26 episodes, but this English Version of the series never reached their conclusion.

24 episodes of the original 73 also aired in Scandinavia (mainly in Sweden) under the original name Starzinger. The series was also quite popular in Italy, France & Spain. 

Powerful weapons of good.

To promote the Animé overseas, "Starzinger: the movie" aired in March 1979 Although, the movie was made in its entirety by reusing footage from the first episodes of the original series, serving as some kind of introduction to the show aimed at new audiences. The same happened with the last 9 episodes of the series being promoted as a sequel to the original movie. Eventually, These episodes became "SF Saiyuki Starzinger II". This sequel was nothing but remarketing the last few episodes, since it aired immediately after the first 64 episodes were shown in June of 1979. The 65th episode began instantly in July 1979 with all the galactic energy restored in the storyline.

The Princess is tempted by sex.

Overall, Starzinger deservers 8 stars out of 10 because it is one the most entertaining to come out of the late 70's first wave of Animé. Although the story may not seem original, the characters are quite well developed, and each of them comes with a value you can easily relate to. For instance, Princess Aurora was the living impersonation of those pure of heart, while her brave warriors incarnated Might, Will & intelligence. The designs quality is excellent, like any design where Leiji Matsomoto's unique style is present. I would recommend it for those who like the traditional hero storytelling and expect nothing but to be entertained. There's been a recent DVD re-release of the series in 3 separate volumes for those interested. If you want the original unaltered series the internet might be the place to look for it.

Here's the original Japanese opening:

Here's the italian opening:

Here's the American opening:

Here's the Latin American opening: