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8 Man

"Tobor" redirects here. If you are looking for the American TV robot, see Captain Video.

8 Man
エイトマン
(8 Man)
Genre Science fiction, Action, Adventure, Drama
Manga: 8 Man
Serialized in Weekly Shōnen Magazine
Manga: 8 Man Infinity
Author Kyoichi Nanatsuki
Publisher Kodansha
Serialized in Magazine Z
Volumes 4
TV anime
Director Haruyuki Kawajima
Studio Eiken/TCJ Animation Center
Network TBS
Original run 7 November 1963 – 31 December 1964
Episodes 56
Live action film: Subete no Sabishī Yoru no Tame ni
Released 1992

8 Man (8マン?) or Eightman (エイトマン Eitoman?) is a fictional manga and anime superhero created in 1963 by writer Kazumasa Hirai and artist Jiro Kuwata. He is considered Japan's earliest cyborg superhero, predating even Kamen Rider (the same year, Shotaro Ishinomori created Cyborg 009), and was supposedly the inspiration for RoboCop.

The manga was published in Weekly Shōnen Magazine and ran from 1963 to 1966. The anime series, produced by Eiken with the TCJ Animation Center, was broadcast on Tokyo Broadcasting System, and ran from November 17, 1963 to December 31, 1964, with a total of 56 episodes (plus the "farewell" special episode, "Goodbye, Eightman").

Contents

The story

Murdered by criminals, Detective Yokota's body is retrieved by Professor Tani and taken to his laboratory. There, Tani performs an experiment that has failed seven times in the past; Yokoda is the latest subject to have his life force transferred into an android body. For the first time, the experiment is successful. Yokoda is reborn as the armor-skinned android 8 Man, able to dash at impossible speeds, as well as shape-shift into other people. He shifts himself into Yokoda, this time christening himself as "Hachiro Azuma". He keeps this identity a secret, known only to Tani, and his police boss Chief Otsuka. Even his girlfriend Sachiko and friend Ichiro don't know he's an android. As 8-Man, Hachiro fights assorted crime (even bringing his murderers to justice) to uphold justice and save the innocent.

The US version

In 1965, 8 Man was brought to the U.S. as 8th Man.

The characters were renamed as follows:

  • Yokota/Azuma/8 Man - Special Agent Brady/Tobor ("robot" spelled backwards)/8th Man
  • Tani - Professor Genius
  • Tanaka - Chief FumbleThumbs
  • Sachiko - Jenny
  • Ichiro - Skip

The lyrics for the US series theme song:

There's a prehistoric monster
that came from outer space.
Created by the Martians
to destroy the human race.
The FBI is helpless,
it's twenty stories tall!
What can we do, who can we call?
Call Tobor the 8th Man,
Call Tobor the 8th Man.
Faster than a rocket,
quicker than a jet.
He's the mighty robot,
he's the one to get.
Call Tobor the 8th Man.
Quick call Tobor, the mightiest robot of them all!

Trivia

  • Professor Genius tells a newly-awakened Tobor that his robot body has the physical strength equivalent of 10,000 men.
  • 8th Man had special energy cigarettes that he carried in a cigarette case on his belt. Bad guys who made the mistake of allowing Tobor to have a final smoke before attempting to execute the worn down 8th man were rudely surprised to find that he would return to full strength.

Stations

Alphabetized by city.

1990s Revival

The 8 Man franchise was revived in the early 1990s by a live action film, video game and new animated series.

Video game

In 1991, small Japanese video game developer Pallas released a video game edition of Eight Man for the Neo-Geo arcade and home video game system (both versions are identical) where the player took the role of 8 Man and his robo-comrade 9 Man in a fight against an invading evil robot army. The game was released internationally. While the game stayed true to the concept of a crime-fighting super-robot, it was widely panned for being tedious and relying too much on the gimmick of its speed-running effect.

Live action movie

In 1992, a live-action film version of 8 Man was produced in Japan. Titled Eitoman - Subete no Sabishī Yoru no Tame ni (8マン・すべての寂しい夜のために, lit. 8 Man - For All the Lonely Night[1]), it was directed by Yasuhiro Horiuchi and starred Kai Shishido as the title character and Toshihide Wakamatsu as Detective Yokota. Distributed in the United States by Fox Lorber video simply as 8 Man, the movie was widely panned for its choppy editing, mediocre direction and low-budget feel. Many modern American viewers, unfamiliar with the older animated series, felt the movie was an inferior version of RoboCop, despite the fact that the latter was a much more recent franchise.

8 Man After animated series

In mid-1993, the mantle of 8 Man was taken up by Hazama Itsuru in the OVA series 8 Man After. Existing in a world far more corrupt than that of his predecessor, the new 8 Man had no qualms about being extremely violent towards the cybernetic criminals who had murdered him previously.

2000s Revival

Currently, a manga series called 8 Man Infinity is being authored by Kyoichi Nanatsuki under Kodansha, which is being serialized under Kodansha's Magazine Z.

Trivia

8Man is one of manga-ka Akira Toriyama's favourite anime, and to pay tribute in Dragon Ball, Son Goku called mechanical man number eight 8-man a.k.a. Android No. 8 (as seen in the Red Ribbon Army Arc) because he thought the former was too long. In English dubs he called the mechanical man "eighter".

References

  1. ^ Translation of 8 Man Japanese subtitle by Google Translate

External links

 This article contains Japanese text.
Without proper rendering support,
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