Review Piece: Space Adventure Cobra Movie (Secret Santa)

Its that time again. This year for Reverse Thieves' Secret Santa I am covering the 1982 film Space Adventure Cobra. Check out my thoughts after the jump.

Why Space Adventure Cobra?

This was admittedly a tougher choice out of the 3 suggestions I had received. I was leaning slightly towards the film Ninja Scroll, but that seems a bit too...inappropriate for a Christmas review. So here is a film set in the far future about a space pirate instead!

What is it about?

Space Adventure Cobra is the first piece of animation based on the original 1978 Shonen Jump manga and was directed by Osamu Tezaki who has also directed and contributed to classic shows, OVAs and films such as the original Astro Boy anime, Ashita no Joe and Lupin III just to name a few.

The film itself revolves around our main lead Cobra who is enlisted by a bounty hunter in order to help save her sister but ends up being caught up in a struggle over the fate of a mysterious planet, and eventually the galaxy itself.

Who are our characters?

Our main lead Cobra himself is the best character in the film by far. He is a lovable rogue who reminds me so much of Han Solo and Lupin III with his love of the ladies and kicking butt with his arm gun known as the Psychogun. His role in the film is fairly standard as the hero who just does what he wants. That so happens to be to save the galaxy as well as resolving a problem between the female leads but his personality made me love him.

The previously mentioned female leads are sisters Jane, Catherine and Dominique. They are unfortunately pretty weak as characters. While they do seem capable of being able to kick butt alongside Cobra at first, they pretty much exist solely to be Cobra's love interests. The connection between two of the sisters which I won't spoil, further proves this. This is except for Catherine who is essentially there to be a sort-of side villain and plot device as Cobra needs to help save her.

The main villain Crystal Boy (Yes. That is seriously his name) isn't very good or interesting either. All he wants is to destroy the galaxy for no good reason. That is it. Really. The only good thing about him that I can think of is that his design is kinda neat. Overall, anyone who wasn't Cobra in this movie was pretty uninteresting and average to me.

How Good does it look/sound?

Like I've said before, this film was made in 1982 so I wasn't expecting brilliant animation out of this. However, the film won me over with its visuals for the most part. Action scenes in particular are animated very nicely and the art direction is also excellent. Even if quite a lot of scenes will make you wonder if you accidentally ingested drugs before viewing. There is also a fair amount of fanservice as well if you're curious.

I watched the original Japanese version of the film and the cast do their jobs nicely. Although most of them haven't done anything else I know since this. There are two English dubs for this movie: one by Manga UK and the most recent one which was done by Streamline Pictures. I've seen clips of the Streamline dub and it seems like the best option out of the two. The music isn't memorable but fits the movie very well. It screams 80s with a good amount of keyboard and orchestra compositions.

Overall

Space Adventure Cobra is a decent action/sci-fi anime film with a lovable main lead and some pretty nice visuals for the time. Because the film did let me down with it's lame plot and mostly poor characters, I don't think I'll be in a hurry to watch it again unless I do a big Cobra marathon in the future. I'm more  in it for the art. If any of you are curious you can get the film on DVD and it is also on Hulu if you have that option.

Overall the film was more style than substance in my opinion. I should point out that I went into this completely blind with no knowledge of the original manga or anime at all but it has piqued my interest in checking out subsequent Cobra material which would be both of the TV series and the OVAs at some point.

With that in mind, I wish all of you reading this as well as everyone else here at One Piece at a TimeBlog a safe and merry Christmas, as well as a Happy Holidays too!