009-1, Volume 1 - AMN Anime

"a fun series"

"tons of style to burn"

"If you enjoy something sexy and stylish (and occasionally quite violent), grab this up!"

September 16, 2007

by: Serdar Yegulalp

A sexy cyborg spy leaps from the pages of Shotaro Ishinomori's classic manga and onto the TV screen.

Review Hardware Used: Samsung SyncMaster 226BW 22” flat-panel widescreen display; Power DVD XP running on Windows Vista; Tannoy Reveal studio monitors; Yamaha AP-470 USB 1.1 outboard amplifier.

Disc Description: In a world where the Cold War never ended, East and West continue to battle for technological and political supremacy. Mylene Hoffman, field commander of the elite Double Zero intelligence division, exists in this world with her eyes open and her body always ready to do battle.


Liberating benevolent scientists, tagging along with would-be monster-slayers, meeting her match in the world's most hard-boiled assassin and navigating a deadly labyrinth of horrors are all in a day's work for Mylene. There's no problem she can't solve with the proper application of high explosives, fast-talk, deceptive jewelry, make-up and the right moves behind closed doors!


Features


English, Japanese audio

Japanese subtitles

Director and Staff Interview

How the Manga Became an Anime

Weapons and Gadgets Information

Clean Opening Animation

Clean Closing Animation, Previews

16 pg. Insert Booklet

Disc Review

Content: (This section may contain spoilers.)


There was a piece in the news the other day about how the generation now leaving high school never lived in a world where things like the Cold War or the Berlin Wall were day-to-day realities. For that reason, I wondered how they might respond to 009-1, a spy fantasy that takes the tensions of the Cold War and recasts it in an alternate-future world where the “East Bloc” and “West Bloc” use their best undercover operatives to undermine each other’s plans. It’s a throwback to the styles of the older James Bond films (and to a lesser extent the mutant Euro-spy stuff like Danger: Diabolik), but you don’t need a cultural history lesson to enjoy it. 009-1 has enough style to burn all on its own.


The title refers to the code number of cyborg superspy Mylene Hoffman, one of a slew of equally-skilled agents employed by the West Bloc to put a stop to any number of nefarious plans. Like her male counterpart Bond, she’s not above sliding between the sheets to wring information out of an intelligence source (male or female), and can kill without mercy if the need arises. Most of the time, it’s wit and not reflexes that will help her come through—as in the first mission, when she’s sent to rescue a kidnapped scientist and eventually realizes her quarry may have sold them all out under pressure … or not.


Aside from the usual spy-mission stuff, Mylene takes on a number of other missions that test her mettle, her creativity, her intelligence, or a combination of the above. Things are rarely what they seem, as you can imagine: among other oddities, Mylene has to contend with a group of psionic “freaks” who appear to be nothing more than children, and a castle labyrinth where a whole slew of agents have been brought in to match wits against their host. In my favorite episode on the disc, “Hard Boiled,” she’s pitted against an assassin with very specific (and conveniently inflexible) habits, and teaches him how to play really dirty in her line of work.


If the artwork in 009-1 seems eerily reminiscent of Osamu Tezuka, it’s not an accident. Tezuka protégée Shotaro Ishinomori—creator of the legendary Kamen Rider and Genma Taisen—was responsible for the original 009-1 comic, and the similarly-themed Cyborg 009. Because the 009-1 manga was very much a product of its time, some of it hasn’t dated well, so director Naoyuki Konno decided that the best way to adapt the show was to stay true to the spirit of the story while adding more modern sensibilities about story and character. But they stuck close to the original series’s inimical Sixties vibe, and in the end created something that stands nicely on its own and doesn’t need the original to justify its existence.

Video: The disc’s been mastered in 16x9 widescreen, albeit with no progressive flagging (a common complaint of mine since it helps the video look that much better on an HD display).

Audio: English and Japanese audio with English subs are both included, although the Japanese audio is slightly louder and more compressed (it’s also 2.0 to the English 5.1). The English voice cast is nicely selected; Alice Fulks makes an appropriately husky-voiced Mylene, who coincidenetally enough gets her best workout during my favorite episode. Bear in mind the disc is rated TV-MA, so the language (and some of the imagery!) in both the dub and sub version is fairly explicit. This isn’t a kid’s show.


Menus: Static slates—no motion menus—but they’re accompanied with music loops and stylish-looking character-silhouette designs that are reminiscent of the packaging art itself. There’s a few funny transitions, though: select an episode from the main menu and you get a fade-to-white over a racket of gunfire.


Extras: The bonuses are plentiful and worthy of a title with a bit of history. On the disc itself we have clean opening and closing animations, an interview with the director and staff, a short feature called “How the Manga Became an Anime,” a “Weapons and Gadgets” overview, and a spate of ADV previews: Le Chavelier d’Eon, Kurau Phantom Memory, Gantz, Gilgamesh, Air Gear and Gravion. The best extra is actually not on the disc itself, but is the sixteen-page booklet that comes with it—it’s crammed with character notes, interviews with the crew, production information, trivia, and tons more.


The Bottom Line: I was half-expecting to only be able to recommend 009-1 to hardcore old-school manga lovers—i.e., people who’ve been around long enough to know about Ishinomori’s work firsthand—or fans of Sixties Cold War spy flicks. The good news is you don’t have to be in either category. If you enjoy something sexy and stylish (and occasionally quite violent), grab this up; it’s a nifty surprise.


Media DVD
Region 1
Genre Action/Adventure
Publisher ADV Films
MSRP $29.98
Running Time 100 minutes
Aspect Ratio 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Release Date 06/19/07
Age Rating TV-MA

Posted on Tuesday, September 18, 2007 (Archive on Thursday, October 18, 2007)