Cyborg 009: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Classic Franchise

With anime only becoming more popular in recent years, it’s often easy to forget the pivotal series that set the foundation for the rest, like Cyborg 009. There are no shortages of robots and cyborgs in anime, but Shotaro Ishinomori’s series strives to do something different with these archetypes.

RELATED: 10 Classic Anime That Are Hard To Watch Today

Cyborg 009 is an important franchise from the past for both the manga and anime mediums, but it’s far more than just an entertaining relic. Cyborg 009 has a rich history that’s not clear to everyone, but that just adds to Shotaro Ishinomori’s classic franchise.

10 The Original Manga Ran For Over 15 Years

Cyborg 009 has become quite the evergreen franchise and has been present every decade since its debut, whether it’s been through manga, anime, or some other means of entertainment. Cyborg 009 all started with Shotaro Ishinomori’s original manga, which debuted all the way back on July 19, 1964 in Monthly Shonen King.

Cyborg 009 would shift between multiple publications throughout its run, but remained a manga staple until it prematurely ended in 1981, 17 years after it had first debuted. Despite this, the property remains in the public consciousness today.

9 It’s A Shonen Series With Shojo Sensibilities 

Anime are able to completely shift genres or reinvent themselves, which can both work for a series as well as spell its doom. Cyborg 009 is a shonen series in the sense that it’s geared towards a young male demographic and that there’s an emphasis on combat.

However, Cyborg 009 takes an ambitious turn during its fifth story arc, where it tries to cater towards the shojo genre’s female audience. The Wind City, Snow Carnival, and Edda Arcs all lean more into shojo sensibilities and feature obstacles that pull from mythical creatures for inspiration.

8 It Has An Epic Crossover With The Devilman Franchise

Cyborg 009 is an institution that’s been around for over 50 years and Go Nagai’s Devilman franchise has nearly as historic of a legacy. It’s very exciting when two big franchises can crossover, but Go Nagai has a tendency to do it with his own existing works, which Cyborg 009 is not.

RELATED: Top 10 Robots from Non-Mecha Anime

This makes the three-episode OVA series, Cyborg 009 VS Devilman, such a delight and the perfect combination of two iconic series. It highlights both properties and there’s excessive chaos that turns the crossover into a suspenseful event withou feeling manipulative.

7 The Series Draws Inspiration From The Earth’s Core Fantasy Series

Cyborg 009 has become a foundational cyborg and shonen narrative that’s inspired countless series throughout the years, but Ishinomori’s original manga has its own inspirations that played a major factor in the manga’s inception. Ishinomori has cited Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Earth’s Core fantasy series as fundamental and there are some unabashed homages to it in Cyborg 009, like the journey to the Earth’s core and a telepathic reptilian species. Some of Ray Bradbury’s work has also been important to Ishinomori and added a darker tone to the fantasy material.

6 There Are Three Separate Anime Series And A Number Of Movies

It’s not unusual for series that have been around for as long as Cyborg 009 to have multiple adaptations, but people repeatedly return to Cyborg 009’s narrative in a new way. The first Cyborg 009 anime ran for 26 episodes during 1968, with a follow-up happening in 1979 with 50 episodes, and finally a more modern version in 2001 with 51 episodes. Additionally, four Cyborg 009 movies have been released, as well as a trilogy of films called Cyborg 009: Call of Justice, which have also been broken up into a 12-episode anime.

5 There’s A Dub That Aired On Toonami, But Only For A Fraction Of The Material

The significance of Adult Swim’s Toonami anime block shouldn’t be underestimated and it’s helped introduce mainstream audiences to many anime series for the first time. Some people will resist checking out a series if there isn’t a dub, however. 

RELATED: 10 Popular Anime Of The 70s That Time Forgot

While the majority of the Cyborg 009 franchise is only available with subtitles, the 2001/2002 series, Cyborg 009: The Cyborg Soldier aired on Toonami with an English dub. That being said, only 42 of the 51 episodes were aired before it was abandoned. Additionally, there’s been a dub made for the 2012 movie 009 Re:Cyborg.

4 The 2002 Anime Has A Meta Episode That Writes in The Series’ Creator

It’s nothing new for anime series to get meta and deconstruct their text in an unconventional way with the audience, but 2002’s Cyborg 009: The Cyborg Soldier delivers an especially inventive episode towards the end of its run titled “The Goddess Scheme.”

This is an original episode that pulls from Ishinomori’s unfinished Cyborg 009 concluding material and actually writes Ishinomori into the episode, having him interact with his own fictional characters only to learn that he’s written the manga because these real figures have influenced him. It’s a very thoughtful detour before the end of the series.

3 A Follow-Up Manga Was Made Using Ishinomori’s Original Notes

Cyborg 009’s Shotaro Ishinomori passed away in the late ’90s. He was able to tell the Cyborg 009 story for years, but he still had more plans for his series, including a mammoth concluding chapter, that weren’t able to come to fruition by the author.

Over a decade later, Ishinomori’s original notes, sketches, and drafts were painstakingly followed with the help of Ishinomori’s son in order to bring the finale to life. The result is Cyborg 009 Conclusion: God’s War, which is five volumes and provides satisfying closure to the story.

2 It Has Video Games, Radio Dramas, And Other Supporting Material

Cyborg 009 is a franchise that’s been popular in Japan ever since the 1960s, evolving through the changing mediums of each decade. Cyborg 009 is typically consumed through its manga, anime, and movies, but other sources of entertainment speak towards just how versatile of a property Cyborg 009 really is. There are a series of video games and two audio dramas that have been produced, all of which reinterpret events from the various Cyborg 009 series, albeit in radically different ways that embrace their respective mediums.

1 It’s Created By The Same Person Responsible For Super Sentai And Kamen Rider

Sometimes influential series are one-off successes by creators, but more often they’re a stepping stone along a prestigious career in the industry. Cyborg 009 is no exception and its manga was created by Shotaro Ishinomori, an important voice in the industry from the 1960s all the way until the ’90s.

Ishinomori’s creation of Cyborg 009 would be impressive by itself, but he’s also responsible for other extremely popular series like Kamen Rider and Super Sentai, the latter of which would be turned into Power Rangers. Cyborg 009 highlights many of Ishinomori’s fascinations, which are also present in his other works.

NEXT: One-Punch Man: 5 Anime Cyborgs Genos Could Beat (& 5 He Couldn’t)

Next 10 Most Brutal Anime Betrayals, Ranked

About The Author Daniel Kurland (412 Articles Published)

Daniel Kurland is a freelance writer, comedian, and critic, who lives in the cultural mosaic that is Brooklyn, New York. Daniel’s work can be read on ScreenRant, Splitsider, Bloody Disgusting, Den of Geek, and across the Internet. He recently completed work on a noir anthology graphic novel titled, “Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Noir: A Rag of Bizarre Noir and Hard Boiled Tales” and he’s currently toiling away on his first novel.

More From Daniel Kurland