Space Adventure Cobra Review - 75/100
Well, so Inspired by Cobra The Animation, I decided to check out the original Cobra series for some good old-fashioned entertainment. Within that, I found myself slightly disappointed, though. In the end, I like Osamu Dezaku best when he takes himself seriously.
But Cobra himself is still interesting to watch, if only for how over the top this series takes his superpowers. This franchise remains one of shallowness: Cobra never really develops and really only remains interesting because of his personality and how he continues to kick ass even with every odd stacked against him. The people he meets are all pretty shallow, and mostly stay forgettable. But at light entertainment, it’ll keep you interested with its action.
Seriously, this is 1982. For a TV-series, the graphics are very well drawn and animated. There is hardly any distorted frame, and the animation cuts no corners whatsoever. I believe that this series, the founding of Ghibli and Macross (which aired around the same time) started the revolution in anime that lead to significantly improved graphics throughout the eighties.
To illustrate my problems with this series however, I think it’s best to compare it to Cobra the Animation. While similar, there are some essential differences that made me actually enjoy the remake more than the original Cobra series, and it has to do with the focus of these series. They’re both both adventure series: the kind that you watch for their simplicity and unpretentiousness. However, the focus of 1982 Cobra lies on killing bad guys. The focus on Cobra 2010 lies on on exploring: meeting interesting places and people. Sure, Cobra 1982 has some creative settings, and Cobra 2010 also kills a bunch of bad guys, but these take a bit of a backseat to the real focus.
The thing is: 31 episodes of Cobra killing waves and waves of bad guys, often ending in him facing some sort of boss, gets old. With the exception of Crystal Boy, all of the bad guys just look like each other, especially the minor ones. The series does try to bring in some variation here and there, but it’s nowhere near enough to really catch my attention.
The thing with series that feature a godly main character who can never be beaten is that you really need to keep it entertaining to make up for their lack of flaws. The key is often creativity: take One Outs for example: a lot of fun to watch despite its complete lack of depth. And then there also is the Cobra of 2010, which despite its low production values isn’t afraid to insert the craziest ideas that prevent it from being boring. The 1982 Cobra however plays it too safe: there just wasn’t enough creativity in it for my tastes and for every nice idea it had three repeated and recycled ones.
| Storytelling: | 7/10 - Solid direction, but too safe and repetitive. |
| Characters: | 6/10 - Shallow, to say the least. Especially women and bad guys are just paper bags but Cobra has his charms. |
| Production-Values: | 9/10 - Very detailed animation, decent but unimpressive soundtrack. |
| Setting: | 8/10 - Granted, the backstory of the universe that this show is set in does have its set of surprises. |