QUICKIE -- Cyborg 009: Call of Justice (Netflix)

A 2016 3D movie, based on the Cyborg 009 manga produced by Production I.G. and animated by OLM Digital and Signal MD and distributed by Toho, was released on November 25, 2016. The movie itself was divided into 3 parts, with Part 2 being released December 2, 2016 and Part 3 on December 9, 2016. Kenji Kamiyama was chief director of the project, and Kokai Kakimoto directed the film. Netflix acquired digital distribution rights to the movie, where the movie was shown first on Netflix Japan in Spring 2016, with other territories following later. The films, edited down into 12 episodes, were released worldwide on Netflix on February 10, 2017.

Voice Cast:

009: Keisuke Koumoto/Kyle McCarley
001: Misato Fukuen/Erica Mendez
002: Takuya Satō/Robbie Daymond
003: Risa Taneda/Cristina Vee
004: Satoshi Hino/Ray Chase
005: Kenji Nomura/Chris Tergliafera
006: Mitsuaki Madono
007: Setsuji Satō/Ben Diskin
008: Haruki Ishiya/Zeno Robinson
Katarina Canetti: Yui Makino/Cherami Leigh
Emperor: Kazuhiko Inoue/Patrick Seitz

Sypnosis: 

The Blessed, a group of people who possess superhuman powers and intellect, and have manipulated human history since ancient times. Their goals are unknown and they cast a dark shadow over the world.

Though few people believe in the Blessed's existence, one journalist named Lucy Davenport heads to Texas to contact a certain family, and she meets the cyborgs who escaped from the clutches of Black Ghost and have defended humanity from them and other threats. The cyborgs themselves have been freed from their duty of protecting humanity ever since the establishment of the UN Guardian troops, and they now live quiet lives of peace. However, Lucy's visit and the return of the Blessed draw Joe and the others once more unto the breach of a new battle.

The Verdict: 

I know that I've mentioned Cyborg 009 a LOT for those who follow my regular discussions and themes on Facebook. So you know I was excited to hear that Cyborg 009 got a new anime. At first glance, I wasn't too crazy about the new look and character designs, but by the end of the 2nd or 3rd episode I was fine with the changes. This is still the same team of 00 Cyborgs that I loved from the 2001 anime.

004 is still my favorite out of the 00 Cyborgs, even though I'm not crazy about how "old" he looks here.

Sadly, there's some things that still plague this anime that existed in the 2001 series that annoyed me about the 00 Cyborgs. 003 is always treated as the damsel in distress, despite her superior reconnaissance abilities. She does get a pretty bad ass motorcycle towards the finale but doesn't do much with it. 008 is limited to being the Aquaman of the group - since he's only useful underwater, despite being one of the only 00 Cyborgs with actual combat experience prior to being abducted by Black Ghost and made into a Cyborg. 006 is still a walking Chinese (at least his design isn't as cringe-worthy as it was in previous iterations) stereotype. And last but not least, they make sure to let 009 win just about every battle they find themselves in. I get that he has better performance specs than the other 00 Cyborgs, but damn, that's so annoying that he's always the only one who can take down the major baddie. I tend to like their battles where it's more of a teamwork effort, like the Fantastic Four would do to combine their abilities in various effects to subdue whoever or whatever they find themselves against. Here, it just seemed like almost every fight was "OK let's stay alive long enough for 009 to figure out what to do to win." It was either that or waiting for 001 to teleport everyone to safety. Speaking of which, I did appreciate that they focused a bit more on 005's Native American beliefs and culture this time around and they finally shed some light on the truth about 001's powers.

In terms of adversaries, I thought the Blessed were something new and fresh and a nice departure from the mad scientists and renegade Cyborgs they always seem to find themselves up against. I just found the plot twist and the "betrayal(s)" far too predictable and obvious. If the rumors are true about this getting another season, I just hope they put more attention into the narrative for the next go-round.

In terms of the voice actors, I don't have any complaints as the new cast for this anime seemed more appropriate than the cast in the Vs. Devilman OVA movie did as they sound closer to the voices from the English dub of the 2001 Cyborg 009 anime. 009 sounds more mature - as would be expected from their experiences to this point and they axed the stereotypes to the voice characterizations from the other Cyborgs' nationalities.

Watch It or Don't Bother?

Get used to a lot of 009 hogging the spotlight...

This catered towards fans who have seen most of the 2001 Cyborg 009 anime or even the Cyborg 009 vs. Devilman OVA movie a while back that was on Netflix. There's some references to the RE:Cyborg 009 movie, but that was regarded as commercial failure by the creators AND the fans, so this is best understood if you have some prior knowledge to the team from the 2001 series, even though this is a small revamp of sorts in terms of design and modernization to their narrative after the Cyborg 009 manga and original anime creator passed away back in 1998.

I think newcomers could enjoy this if they only seen the vs. Devilman movie or new to this anime as there's a minor recap on their previous adventures. If you have Netflix, you should check that out first prior to watching this for you'll know what you're getting into, but it's essentially the same idea that this anime is known for - questioning the value and meaning of humanity. Is it the best thing in terms of anime that you can check out on Netflix? Not really, but definitely worth a watch if you're a fan of Cyborg 009 and can stomach the new visual style.


My only complaint with this anime is that it's over as quickly as it begins and there's still some tropes and themes that still plague this anime that existed in the original anime, despite this modern take on these characters that I mentioned above.

In terms of the ending, I think a lot of that is going to go over most fans' heads as there's a bit of the explanation lost in translation, but fine folks on reddit explained it well below. Mind you, this is major SPOILERS for the ending:

due to some translation errors the ending may seem a little off also you need to know about the actual Accelerator device in 009 Joe. 

The accelerator device has no limits to its ability to wrap its user in a field of motion control, which can be used to manipulate the movement of space/time of the user. Its limit is that a human mind can't comprehend the environment, so a Cybernetic governor is needed to help the brain process which is called overclocking. Technically the accelerator would have no limits to how it manipulates the movement of space/time as long as the mind could comprehend what it was processing in the environment around it. 009 has on multiple occasion throughout the series as a whole broken this governing limited and moved beyond the speeds intended for accelerator. 

what isn't clear because of translation issues is if Joe was always a blessed (my gut feeling says yes because he's broken the accelerator barrier 3 times before) or if what Linker theorized Joe evolved through his overclocked brain enhancements. This is disputed by 2 things, Ivan who said that 009 had always been that way and the fact they kept showing Joe's brain making connections already existing in his mind. regardless of which origin he is, Joe's mind reached a point where it could now process a world of physical movement laws beyond our understanding, in the end he can now manipulate movement of space and time beyond the realm of normal thought processes which allows him to move beyond space, time, or even existence as a whole. 

What he gained and what Emperor could not copy was the ability to understand a level of existence beyond physical movement, Joe had been slowly evolving or unlocking this power for as Ivan put it, over 3000 years due to his usage of standard Accelerator. He is now able to move beyond existence and its law of time and space, which he used to move Emperor outside of existence where he will never age, never die, and never understand what, where, and how he exists. 

The ending implied that 009 was able to also return and either saved 004 Heinrich and 002 Jet or 002 and 004 were saved by the other 009 cyborgs. I mean Ivan could technically locate and teleport 004 before he crashes into the sun, and we never really learned if 002 was killed fighting against Pyotr. 009 could easily just have learned to return from his infinite speed. 

hope this helps in making that ending make a little more sense

Thanks to ThaBlackReaper on reddit for clearing that one up. I got the idea that 009 was possibly one of the Blessed like 001 was understood as he's surpassed what his Accelerator has been set to do several times throughout the course of the 2001 anime, so the fact that it could "evolve" to this stage doesn't really surprise me. I just hope that this means that the other 00 Cyborgs' powers can evolve as well or at least get performance upgrades to compensate for they won't fall behind in battle.