THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS
(although idk if anyone cares about spoilers for a movie like this)
tldr:
it's a superhero-style kids movie from the 60s. the plot is fairly simplistic
main issue: anti-war theme conflicts with the rest of the film
other issue: some very obvious racial and gender stereotypes
side note: there's a few segments with rapidly flashing colourful lights, but I'm genuinely not sure if it's rapid enough to cause epileptic seizures
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...
This film follows the adventures of Joe Shimamura, a racecar driver who dies in a car crash, has his body stolen by an evil organisation called "Black Ghost", and unwillingly gets brought back to life as a technologically-enhanced cyborg. Joe finds out that he's the 9th person to fall victim to this. Black Ghost has secretly been encouraging two major nations to go to war, and it profits off the weapons that it sells to both sides. The cyborgs are just another weapon, but they (along with the professor who created them) turn against Black Ghost and escape.
We have a cast of 9 cyborgs:
001 - baby that talks in uwu speak. body of an infant, but has a brain with super intelligence
002 - can fly using jet thrusters inside his boots/feet
003 - super vision and hearing
004 - fingers can shoot bullets, knees can shoot missiles
005 - super strength
006 - breathes fire
007 - basically ditto (the pokemon), except he can become whatever he thinks of (doesn't need to copy something nearby)
008 - basically aquaman
009 - main character. OP compared to the rest, probably since he's the latest model
The bulk of the movie involves them fighting Black Ghost. This includes normal soldiers, spy dolphins, cobras and dinosaurs with missiles, and a moderately large armoured spider. Near the end of the movie, they take down this green goblin boss (not to be confused with the Green Goblin from Spider-Man), who confesses that he isn't the *real* leader of Black Ghost. It's actually a computer, which was created as a military tool for WWI and WWII. That computer got Black Ghost to kidnap 003 and alter her mind to become a mindless robot, so that she can attack the rest of the cyborgs. 009 defeats the computer, bringing 003 back to normal. But before the computer dies, it starts a nuclear time bomb. The cyborgs escape just in time, and they each eventually return to their homelands. They promise to meet again when the time comes, because the "true enemy" isnt Black Ghost, but humanity's greed and capacity for war, which may never go away.
Quite frankly, the story would've been fine if it didn't try to end on that theme. Without it, it would've been just like any other superhero-style children's movie from the era. However, adding the theme of "humanity too easily goes to war, and that's bad" creates the following issues:
1) If evil nature of *humanity* is the true evil, why make the primary villains a goblin and a computer?
2) The theme of "war is bad" conflicts with the way the cyborgs are depicted in combat. When the cyborgs fight (and presumably kill) Black Ghost soldiers, it's portrayed as either heroic, cool, or in some cases comical. This is a common issue in war films, and you could solve this by explaining when war/fighting is justified. But the film never goes into such depth.
3) If human greed/evil is the enemy, and the heroes are cyborgs, then there's the potential implication that humanity can only be saved by submitting to our superior technologically-enhanced cyborg overlords. In the movie, the heroes don't win by convincing normal humans to put an end to war. They fight a war against Black Ghost for them, because humans are too stupid to make the right decisions on their own.
Theme aside, we also have the issue where the distribution of superpowers is heavily unbalanced. 009 is massively OP. He's magically able to fly a plane despite never having done so, and this explained by saying "his skills as a racecar driver were enhanced". (Because obviously, flying a plane is just like driving a car, but harder.) More generally, he doesn't actually appear to need the help of his allies. It's more like they just help him without being asked, and he's just mildly grateful that they do.
As for the rest of the team, 001 and 003's powers are really only useful for giving the team information that can advance the plot. 004's power to shoot bullets and missiles is only marginally better than the rest of the team, since all of the cyborgs have pistols that can shoot both bullets and missiles. 008 gets the short end of the stick, as his Aquaman abilities (basically just being able to swim underwater without needing oxygen) are only useful in the water. Furthermore, 009 can do the exact same thing (and more), and so can 007 (because he can transform himself into a fish or other sea creature).
We also have this weird point in the middle of the film where 009 decides, as the team captain, to only bring half his team to fight Black Ghost. The rest are left to "protect the professor", but I can't see why it required more than one of them (if any) to protect him. And it's not like they don't work well together as a team; just earlier, they all fought of the enemy air force just fine together. This really just felt like an excuse to put aside a few characters to save the main heroes ex machina at the very end. (There's a few remaining Black Ghost soldiers stopping them from leaving the island. Realistically, the main heroes could've just shot those soldiers without any help.) Alternatively, you could interpret this as a way to avoid needing to animate so many unnecessary characters in the latter half of the film.
And then there's the uh... problematic issues. To be fair, it's a boomer film from the 60s, and I'm judging by standards over 6 decades later. But I don't think I can leave a comprehensive review without mentioning them.
Most obviously, cyborgs 005, 006, and 008 are American Indian, Chinese, and Black caricatures, respectively. This is *mostly* just through the way their faces (and clothing during the end scene) are drawn. 006 and 008 are the only ones shown to use a smoke pipe, and 006 quotes Chinese proverbs at one point. Also, I'm not sure if it's worth pointing out that the professor and 002 have comically large noses, with 002's being hooked. My guess is that this was just a stylistic choice to make them more visually distinct, since I didn't notice any stereotypes connected to that.
On the same note, 003 is literally the only female cyborg, and she's depicted carrying 001 (the baby) when we first see her. In the beginning of the film, she's pretty much just a plot device to give the heroes information. In the middle, her big sadge backstory reveals that she was a ballerina whose parents were killed in the war. She's the only cyborg who doesn't want to keep fighting (until 009 convinces her). At the end, she becomes a damsel in distress for 009 to save. Overall, she's probably the most useless at physically fighting the enemy soldiers, second only to the cyborg with the body of a literal baby.
Lastly, the film ends with the theme that "those who make military technology are worse than those who actively fight in war", followed by an atomic bomb exploding. Whether or not this is Japanese postwar propaganda, I will leave up to you to decide.
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2/10 overall
- animation is pretty good for the era, and the music is average
- but the story and theme don't really work well
- additional minus point for all the sussy bits
Jan 16, 2023
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(Anime)
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THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS
(although idk if anyone cares about spoilers for a movie like this) tldr: it's a superhero-style kids movie from the 60s. the plot is fairly simplistic main issue: anti-war theme conflicts with the rest of the film other issue: some very obvious racial and gender stereotypes side note: there's a few segments with rapidly flashing colourful lights, but I'm genuinely not sure if it's rapid enough to cause epileptic seizures -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ... 
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(Anime)
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