Cyborg 009 - “The Birth of 009”

[deh_tommy]

People here seem to like retro manga, so here’s one I rather enjoyed when I was younger (well, I watched the 2001 anime, but still). The translation work’s a bit spotty and there’s a few bouts of things getting lost in translation, but that gets the job done for the most part. Trigger warnings for attempted suicide and racism, the latter being mostly intentional on the villains’ parts but can also be... unintentional (they’re not written anything like they’re drawn, but the black characters tend to look like this). Please remember to read right to left!



The year is 1960-something. The Cold War rages on, with everyone in a state of panic over the threat of mutual nuclear annihilation, fingers anxiously hovering over the buttons waiting to see which side presses theirs first. Our story begins somewhere in Switzerland, where war profiteers and death merchants gather in a secret meeting under the patronage of the mysterious Black Ghost...










With that, we cut to the Black Ghost’s goons in Moscow, Russia. They’re looking for the brilliant but mad Dr. Gamo Whisky, Who as luck would have that is working on his greatest achievement yet...
























































The ruse works at first, but one guard’s closer scrutinisation blows their cover.
















Miss Arnoul’s brother spots her getting kidnapped and desperately tails the Black Ghost mooks across the city, but he fails to catch them when they escape via plane. On with the kidnappings!

















With that, almost everyone’s been gathered. Now Black Ghost tests them to see what they can do.










...and I think that’s as good a place as any to stop, lest this get any lengthier.

To anyone who clicked this: firstly, thanks! Secondly, what do you think so far? I personally think that’s a bit dated, but that’s got a good bit of charm. I hope you liked this, in any case.

TRANSLATION ALTERATIONS AND/OR ERRORS
•The big bad with the cape and the skull mask is, appropriately enough, called Skull. However, the Tokyopop translation (which is what we’re using here) calls him Scar. Adaptations tend to either flip flop between the two or combine them into one alias: one of the shows called him Scarle, while the 2013 reimagining called him Sekar. The English dub of the 2001 series also called him specifically the Black Ghost, not just the organisation. Take your pick on whatever you want to call him. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
•That’s mentioned in the original script that Dr. Whisky’s wife was away on vacation, which is how and why she wasn’t around to stop him from his experiments.

Comments

[wizardru]

I've been a fan of Cyborg 009 since I saw the 1979 series (when it was new, because I'm ancient). It was the first or second anime I ever saw. I'm guessing they choose not to call him Skull to avoid confusion with Skull Man, another character somewhat visually similar to him by the same creator in another series.

If I were to be pedantic, I'd say that Kamen Rider and Super Sentai were made by the creator of Cyborg 009, given that he did that first. He also did Genma Wars, which got an an animated movie (and laserdisc game!). It's worth noting that while his drawing style was heavily influenced by Osamu Tezuka (who he worked for in his early years) and his character designs swing solidly into racist stereotypes (influenced as they are by American cartoon representations), the characters themselves are well represented; Pyunma is perhaps the most serious member of the team and G-Jr. is presented as thoughtful and reserved. I can forgive a lot as much of the original material was still half in the realm of cartoons: all the characters have fairly silly names, Jet Link there is introduced as basically being in West Side Story and so on.

I have a deep fondness for Cyborg 009, which was basically the all-new, all-different X-Men created at the time of the original five, which is saying something.

[janegray]

Old manga is fast paced as hell O_o

I always wanted to get into this series, because the premise reminds me a lot of X-Men. But the story always pulls out something that puts me off. Like, the remake movie started out as a perfectly cool action adventure movie, and turned into a weird metaphysical gainax thing >_>

[crinos]

I remember watching the animated series based on this that ran on Toonami back in the day. It was good stuff. (And less racist than the original. Also it skipped the origins of most of the first 8 cyborgs and instead jumped in with them already escaped from Black Ghost and rescuing 009 from them as well).

[informationgeek]

Hell yeah. Did the same back in the day. Even have a DVD of the first 9 episodes (only one ever published too). Great show and it was the first real show to really catch me off guard with how cruel and horrible a villain could be with Black Ghost.

[icon_uk]

This is fun, and I love the completely random West Side Story bit...