Tsukumo's Review Corner!!!

[Tsukumo Yuma]

Hi, I am Tsukumo Yuma, and this is were I give my reviews on Movies, Anime, Manga and video games!

From new titles, to old titles.

 

 

I have a review corner on other sites as well, so you might see the same reviews here and on other sites as well.

 

So here it  goes!

Edited February 6, 2015 by Tsukumo Yuma

[Tsukumo Yuma]

While I am figuring out how to make the Devilman review not look like some run on sentence...

Due to me getting really into the first installment of this series, and the death of the creator of this series Kazumasa Hirai, happening only a few days ago, I though it's as good a time as ever for a review on... 

8 Man

This review is on most of the 8 Man series

Description from Myanimelist

A private investigator working a routine case involving stolen technology is mortally wounded. His only hope for survival comes from sacrificing his humanity to become 8Man -- a powerful cyborg crime-fighter enhanced with a living human brain. Resurrected as the ultimate high-tech vigilante, it is up to 8Man to bring the lawless to justice and put an end to the escalating cycle of violence. A classic animated thriller that will leave you breathless.

Now there are many installments of the 8 man series, both in manga anime and live action films, starting back from 1963 to today.

Now here are my thoughts in the 60's anime, and the differences from the manga.

Spoiler Alert: There are some spoilers in this review

1960's

The 1960's 8 Man anime is pretty good story wise, the art is different for anime at the time but it resembles the art in the manga perfectly, the acting for the dub sucks, especially for the main character, the acting in the original japanese language is good but the voice actor for the main character is ok but could use some work on his acting skills. 

The main character 8 man, also known as Yokoda [or in the dub Brady] is a detective, one day when busting a trade between a local gang and a gang from over seas, he is run over by a car driven by one of the criminals. With his internal organs crushed laying on the street almost completely dead, professor Tani discovers the body, he has been looking bodies to use in his experiment, to make the ultimate detective, the "8 Man".

When Yokoda wakes up, he finds him self looking at his own body, and him in a mechanical body, angered at what has been done to him, he yells that Tani should have let him die, however Tani explain to him what his abilities are and how he can use them to get rid of crime with his new abilities, such as the people who killed him, thus he takes the offer to fight as the 8 Man.

As 8 Man he can take on human form and robot form, he now uses the alias Azuma or Tobor in the Dub [don't know why they couldn't choose a less obvious name in the dub] for his human form.

The name 8 Man comes from the fact that there are 7 police precincts, and that 8 Man is to act as a 8th individual precinct of the police force.

Just a note but, there were others before him, they just didn't survive being transferred to machine.

Azuma: now is out for revenge on the people involved in his death, and is working with his friend the police chief, who is also in on the 8 Man project. 

The police chief: he is always worried about losing his job, more so then any thing, and what with crooked people and the actual crime bosses in charge of the city and the police force, he is not going to get out of the red anytime soon, plus he's not all that clean ether.

Sachiko: the love interest in the show acts like the nagging child hood friend type that you see in anime even today. 

The Young paid Intern: He is always talking bad about his boss Azuma, even when they are in the same room only a few feet away, he is horrible at his job as well.

There are difference in the manga and anime, one of them being that Yokoda was gunned down by the criminals, and not run over by there car, another being that illegal drug trades such as crystal meth were a big part of the crime scene in the manga.

While not shown as much in the 1960's anime, but more so in the manga and movie series, 8 Man constantly struggles with the fact he should be dead and that he is nothing but a machine, That he should have died that day those criminals tried to kill him, he can never love anyone or hold a woman, he will never age. Also during this time the Tani and the police chief wanted to make 8 Man more effective and calculative, so they came up with the idea of repressing 8 Man's memories, then to suppress some of his emotions, but the memories random emotions all started coming back, his rage and anger were now directed towards Tani and the police chief, but mostly Tani, and thus he snaps.

Azuma the first 8 Man becomes the villain of the next installments, the once revenge driven hero of the story is now the hurt villain.

1980's

The 8 man project continued, and they made a new 8 Man, however right off the bat Tani erased memories and emotions, instead of making the mistake of doing it later, he as well dawned the name Azuma due to Tani naming him that.

The young intern from the first 8 Man series is for the first time a Major character in this installment, he is now an adult, and still bad at his job, he is now a undercover cop, working to bust different gangs selling illegal drugs.

However at the New Azuma's detective office, his girlfriend from before he became the 8 Man was hired as a secretary for him, and yes this woman is also named Sachiko. though she isn't the same one from the last installment.

At this point short flashes of his memories are coming back to him, and emotions he does not understand.

Not long after he meets the first 8 Man, and they duke it out for a few, the first 8 Man explains to the second that "Tani tried to turn him into the perfect machine, constantly tried to erase his memories and suppress his emotions, that Tani was a man playing god, and that the second 8 Man will eventually turn out like him and want revenge."

In the end, this installment leaves off with the 2nd 8 Man killing the 1st, and the 2nd 8 Man sick of this all wanting to die, and drama with his girlfriend from before, and successfully kills himself.

This the 3rd and last 8 Man.

The differences in this and the live action movie of this installment... well... there is a lot different... here is a list.

1. They make this 1st 8 Man Tani's son in the movie

2. The changed the 2nd's 8 Man name to the same name as the 1st 8 Man

3. they had the 2nd 8 Man get killed during the same case as the 1st 8 Man had in the beginning of the 60's series

The live action movie from 89 had a lot of issues, that I will list at the bottom of this post.

1990's

The 3rd 8 Man is a cop named Hazama, who is investigating companies and huge conglomerates that he Tani and the police chief think are involved in the theft of parts for research in creating cyborgs, along the way Hazama meets Sachiko the girlfriend of the 2nd 8 Man, and romance ensues. Sachiko is now working as secretary to one of the directors of the companies Hazama is investigating, and as such she gets tied up in the case and is now in danger, she helps Hazama get information on the deals the company is doing, and is now being hunted by said company. 

Also tied up in all this is a kid who's Hazama's next door neighbor, his dad was an ex football player that got involved in the local drug rings around the city.

As the story goes on, the drug dealings that the kids dad was involved with, are found out to be tied with the theft of the cyborg parts.

Through out the story Hazama's emotions start coming back, and the memories of his death, thus causing him in his new robotic body, to go out of control on occasions in fits of rage, and even killing innocent civilians, and killing criminals out in public as 8 Man.

at the end of this installment, Tani gives up the 8 Man project, because all 3 of his 8 Men were all failures, emotions ruined them in the end.

Hazama now is the adopted dad is the neighbor kid, now that the kid's dad is now dead due to being on those drugs going around the city.

Hazama claims that he could go out of control again, so he is leaving the crime ridden city, and going to raise the neighbor kid in safer town.

While this is the end of this installment, it isn't the end of Hazama's story.

Ok it's time to round up this review

 

1960's manga/anime ranking and issues

Anime Acting Sub: 7/10 Anime Acting Dub: 5/10

The subs fact that the main characters acting isn't even up to par with everyone else really hurts it, but he was decent, but for the dub his acting skills were like he was reading the script as they recorded, his emotions were monotonous.

Music Sub: 8/10 Music Dub:7/10

The only track in the dub that was different from the japanese one, was the intro, but it was changed for a reason.

The music throughout the series was quite fitting, the intro for both versions lacked diversity melody wise, but the lyrics were fitting for the show in the japanese version.

Action: 8/10

Overall Anime: 7/10

Overall Manga 8/10

The fact that the manga ends with 8 Mans scorn and anger over what Tani did, while the anime did not include that ending, gave it 1 more point, also the corniness and unexplained events the anime sometimes has despite the dark plot.

1980's series 

unfortunately for the movie I only have the dub to go on, so it's based on there acting.

Acting: 7/10

Not bad but not great

Music: 8/10

Not bad, but one track during the sad scene in the movie did not fit at all, the rest of it fit the story nicely

Story Manga: 8/10 Story Movie: 6/10

The story messed up and obvious for the movie, 

Action manga: 9/10 Action Movie: 4/10

The movie literally had 2 fight scenes involving the main character, and both were done poorly, this first was in the dark the entire time, it was like watching people fight indoors at night, without any lights on, the last fight scene was a** pull at best, powers the characters literally never had until now.

OverAll Manga: 9/10

Overall Movie: 5/10

Overall the story is good, the film adaption... the cinematography was horrible, and for a shounen/seinen series about a robotic detective or cop, it was lacking action.

1990's Series

Anime Acting: 8/10

since I have only seen parts of this in japanese, not the full thing, but all of it dubbed, I gave is a 8.

While for the Dub I would give it a 7 at best, because of the bits I saw in japanese and the acting skills of the voice actors portraying the characters, I gave it a 8.

Music: 7/10

There are some good tracks in there, and some that give you the nostalgia of the original series and the movies, but there are also some pretty overused 90's Techno tracks in there.

Action: 9/10

Story: 7/10

Not bad, could have been done better, but still pretty good.

Overall: 8/10

Characters were flawed, but likable, they are not perfect, but neither are real people, they all have there issues that they deal with.

 

 

All in all, its a good story with sci-fi, crime, conspiracy, and action, not all characters are as they seem, and 80s and 90s sequels to the 60s series, prove that even the heroes are sometimes the victim and the villain.

As all series have there problems, this series is not exempt from that.

One thing that is interesting however, are some of the problems that are so big today, like illegal drugs, weapons trafficking, ect... were also shown in this series to be a really big problem back then as well, and still are today.

This went on a little long, so that raps up this review.

 

Edited February 6, 2015 by Tsukumo Yuma