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 Space Adventure Cobra
Anime Review
The set-up.... It's the late 1970s, and Buichi Terasawa has an idea for a manga series based on the concept of the spaghetti western, except the whole thing is set in space in the far future.
It's brash, fun, full of sex and violence, and surprise, it becomes one the biggest hits in Japan during the early 80's, spawning an anime TV series and a movie. Yes, this is retro anime time (although you can also go looking for the 2009/2010 anime series if you want a more modern update to our hero, but this review is for the 1982 movie, which I remember seeing at a sci-fi convention while I was still in high school, which is over 30 years ago); but if you're thinking that Cobra looks a bit like Rob in the American TV series 'Mighty Orbots'... well, that's a long story for another time, but suffice to say, yeah, TMS and Terasawa worked on that too.
And again, like Orbots, the animation quality, color design, lighting effects as well as the general direction and storyline were all way ahead of their time. The TV series aired for some time on the Playboy channel and bits of the movie ended up in Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" video (one of the most popular videos in the history of MTV -- remember when MTV ran music videos?)
Now, of course, the film looks dated, but not so much as other things we could point the 'it seemed better at the time' stick at (Bubblegum Crisis, I'm looking at you).
 Considering when this was made, it holds up pretty well. In essence, Space Adventure Cobra was that the start of the "golden age of 80's Sci-Fi anime", and the film may also be the first ever animated movie made for 3-D (before "Starchaser, The Legend of Orin")... It's certainly the first I can think of out of Japan...
The plot? Don't worry about the plot. This movie follows the first big story arc of the manga --- all you really need to know is that Cobra *was* the biggest, baddest pirate in the Pirate Guild, a sort of space mafia. He got so big that he was ready to take on the top dogs, but things got to hot for him at that point and he had to disappear. So he changed his face, had his memory wiped, and yet, he still retains what made him the guy he was.
Which is of course, why trouble always finds him. Of course, he's had a few other alterations to protect himself -- like making one of arms into a secret weapon.
He's supposed to be so smooth that the ladies just fall for him. Unfortunately, time and cultural differences make the whole thing look pretty corny now, like watching a disco movie from the 70's -- just take it in stride. It's like watching a James Bond movie. James shows up, and women start taking off their clothes, does that *ever* make sense?
So there's these 3 hot chicks who are triplets, the last survivors of a lost planet. If the three sisters unite with the man they love then the planet will be revived. And guess who that man is? Of course! Cobra! But the leader of the Pirate Guild known as "Crystal Boy" isn't going to let any of them get away without a fight. And Crystal Boy is indeed a bad-ass. In fact, he alone is the reason to watch this movie, because he is one of the nastiest, most evil things in all of anime.
So Cobra gets to take on the leader, the very guy he was hiding himself from.
So, in summary, if you're tired of anime where everyone looks 12-years old, if you’re enthused by the idea of anime where all the ladies are essentially Barbarella, and all the guys are James Bond in space, everything's done as smash-bam as possible, where the action is brash and loud, life is cheap and there's nothing between you and the bad guys, except for one man with a Psycho-Gun for an arm..... then, this is the film you’ve been waiting for.
This film is available as streaming for free via Hulu.
Reviewed by Brian Cirulnick, May 2014
Below: Scenes from Space Adventure Cobra.
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Below: Scenes from Space Adventure Cobra.
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