Как КОБРА Навсегда Изменил Аниме и Мангу

What do Vash the Hurricane, Spike Spiegel, Guts, Mister from Coyote Ragtime, Space Dandy, Ryu Saeba or Dante from Devil May Cry have in common? Some of them are incredibly popular among girls, some are united by their love for red cloaks and firearms, and some masterfully pilot spaceships . But with all this, it is difficult to say that there is something in common between all these heroes on a large scale, with the exception of only a couple of similar parameters. But in fact, all of the above

characters are united by the fact that none of them could exist to the extent that we know them, if not for the influence of just one legendary space pirate named Cobra. And okay, if his merit consisted only in the fact that he served as the foundation for the formation of a huge number of cult heroes and plots unfolding around them. But this simply would never have happened if at one time the Space Adventures of Cobra manga had not turned out to be a real phenomenon that changed the entire indu

stry in principle. In addition, the franchise managed to grow old in a pleasant way, from which, after as many as 40 years, getting to know it is still incredibly interesting. Moreover, Cobra is still one of the best representatives of the space opera genre and almost a reference adventure action movie. But before I get to the answer to the main question of this video: “Who the hell is this Cobra of yours?”, I need to read you a magic mantra that guarantees an increase in the success of my chann

el. And it sounds something like this: Like, subscribe, Boost x3. And now that the great magic for promoting my video has worked, you can already proceed directly to the Cobra itself. Somewhere in the distant cosmic future , we meet a certain person named Johnson - the most ordinary office worker, living from paycheck to paycheck and dreaming of one day upgrading his eternally floundering assistant robot to a new model. And so, on one of his days off, Johnson goes to a programmed dream parlor, i

n which he, trying to get away from his boring everyday life, asks to be sent to a dream in which he will be the captain of a spaceship surrounded by a dozen beautiful girls. But, once in the realm of dreams, something starts to go wrong, and instead of the desired dream, Johnson sees how he, in the role of a space pirate nicknamed Cobra, along with an iron girl named Lady Armaroid, gets into all sorts of space adventures. And there could not be an enemy capable of stopping him, because he is ar

med with an amazing and deadly weapon called the “Psycho-gun”, hidden in his left hand, the awesome power of which even the most inveterate thugs are afraid of. However, things start to go awry when Cobra's personality comes to the attention of the biggest crime syndicate bearing the name, the Pirate Guild, whose bosses want to get such a legendary and experienced recruit under their control. But he of course refuses such a tempting offer, because of which he becomes the sworn enemy of the guild

, and the highest award is appointed for his head, after which the real hunt begins for Cobra. And let him be able to stand up for himself, no matter how terrible and dangerous his enemy is, but being constantly on the run is still not the most pleasant state of affairs, so Cobra is forced to go underground, and at this moment the dream of the main hero comes to an end. And even though this story had little to do with what Johnson expected to see in his dream, he also liked such an exciting and

convincing story. So pleased with the current situation, he goes to the casino in order to squander the rest of his recently received bonus there. And then Johnson suddenly starts to get incredibly lucky: no matter what number he bets on, it falls on the roulette wheel. Thus, his sudden good fortune attracts undesirable attention from the administration. Casino employees approach him and say that the manager wants to personally shake hands with such a lucky player. But when Johnson meets with th

e manager, he notices that his face looks somehow too familiar. Indeed, in his recent dream, they had already met, only he was in the role of one of the bosses of the pirate guild. The manager, of course, denies everything and says that they say he is not a space pirate, but the most ordinary respectable owner of a casino, and this is just a stupid coincidence. Nevertheless, there is nothing to come to the casino in order to win, because the manager's henchmen are going to give Johnson a one-way

ticket with a bonus to Johnson's winnings . And here, being in a critically dangerous situation, being pressed against the wall, his left hand emits an unimaginable force of energy, which instantly sends his opponents to the next world. And Johnson, realizing what kind of ass he was in, having crossed the guild road, hurries home as soon as possible in order to collect all his belongings and run out of the city as soon as possible and as far as possible. And then the puzzle in his head begins t

o take shape and the understanding comes to him that his dream, perhaps, was not so unreal. And along with this realization, thugs of the guild come to his soul, who have long been craving the opportunity to finally deal with Cobra. But then his faithful and permanent companion comes to his aid, who has been hiding all this time in the body of a robot assistant, waiting for his memories to return to Cobra. And already together they give a thrashing to the minions of the guild, after which the La

dy tells Cobra about what really happened to the main character 5 years ago. Tired of constantly being prey for the guild, he simply changed his appearance, erased all his memories and began to live a very ordinary life, having finished all his pirate business. But now that his memory has returned to him, Kobra begins to understand that the life of an adventurer who constantly gets into adventures is much more to his liking. Especially since the guild would definitely not leave him alone now. So

he throws off the role of a hard worker Johnson, finds his old spaceship and, as a legendary space pirate, once again embarks on the great and difficult path of an adventurer. Whoever watched the film "Total Recall", the plot plot of Cobra may seem very familiar, only the film with the participation of Arnold Schwarzen **** came out a whole ten years later. Nevertheless, the connection between Cobra and Western cinema is definitely present, because at its core this title is a collective image o

f all that cool that world, and, in particular, American culture could offer in the 80s . This is at the same time an obvious imitation of such series of adventure films as James Bond or Indiana Jones. And at the same time, a homage to the already classic space opera genre of Barbarella and Star Wars. And even that very Disney, not yet frightening with its greedy appetites, found its place in history in the face of an alien, with his appearance clearly referring to Donald Duck or the Black Cloak

. And the image and appearance of the protagonist were completely written off from a French actor named Jean-Paul Belmondo, popular in those years . Moreover, the French themselves liked this decision so much that in France the Cobra franchise is no less popular than in its native Japan. Up to the fact that around 2010, the French director Alexandre Azha, out of his own love for the title, volunteered to give it a full-fledged film adaptation, for which he even flew to Japan, where he met with t

he mangaka in order to discuss all sorts of nuances with him. But as it usually happens at some stage of production, the project reached a dead end and never saw the light of day. Largely, of course, due to the fact that it would be incredibly difficult to find a worthy candidate capable of playing such a charismatic hero. Write, by the way, in the comments who in your opinion would be perfect for this role. And before that, back in the late 90s, another much more famous French film director nam

ed Luc Besson also came to visit the author of Cobra as part of the promotion of his then new film The Fifth Element. During the meeting, both authors mutually expressed respect for their significant contribution to the development of the science fiction genre, shook hands with each other and took a great joint photo with a resolution of 10x10 pixels. In general, the connection between Cobra and Western culture, in particular cinema, is inextricable and very obvious in places. But still, Cobra's

Space Adventures is primarily a manga that was created in Japan and was intended to be read by the Japanese themselves. And everything started for this industry is quite typical: in the mid- 70s, the young Buichi Terasawa moved to Tokyo, where, as an artistic assistant , he got a job in the studio of Osamu Tezuka, and there he received all the necessary experience directly from the first hands. And soon enough, in just a couple of years, he achieves solid results, thanks to which he gets a job

in the then young, but already quite promising magazine called Weekly Shonen Jump. Around the same time, at the end of the 70s, among Japanese otaku is a very popular manga called "Space Pirate Captain Harlock" by Leiji Matsumoto, which tells the adventures of such a very classic and maybe even archaic pirate plowing space . And when Terasawa had to write his original story for Jump, he, apparently, took that very pirate Harlock and gave him a more modern look - so in the 78th year the manga "Sp

ace Adventures of Cobra" appeared. And to say that it was a complete waste is like saying nothing . After all, not only did Terasawa refresh an already popular and loved by readers concept. He also visually designed it in such a way that the quality of the picture, its style and detail still surprise. For you to understand, for some time Harlock and Cobra were published in parallel to each other, and here's how old-school and sometimes just the first one looked, and here's how cool, fresh and un

usual the second one looked. This is not even to mention the fact that at that time almost all manga artists imitated Tezuka's style, which is why the stylistically predominant part of the work looked plus or minus the same. And it is only years later that Tetsuo Hara, Hirohiko Araki and many other talented artists will come into play, who will begin to experiment and hone their own recognizable style. But one of the first such authors, departing from the canons, can definitely be called Buichi

Terasawa. And the thing is that he drew his work not like a classic Japanese manga, but rather like a Western comic book. Indeed, if you do not know the country of origin, it is difficult to find something in the manga that would visually or even somehow indirectly refer to Japanese culture. Therefore, it turned out to be a surprisingly advantageous situation in which Japanese readers, when reading manga, saw in it their favorite Western flavor, and Western readers, on the contrary, received som

ething pleasantly familiar to them, but at the same time in an unusual shell, in which somehow somewhere then between the lines one could feel the very Japanese. In addition to Western comics themselves as a cultural phenomenon, Terasawa's artistic style was also influenced by quite specific authors. Here, most likely, it was not without the participation of Frank Frazetta, whose illustrations in the 80s and 90s became almost the only true way to visualize the fantasy genre. And also he was most

likely influenced by the artist of his countryman named Sorayama Hajime, who in his work sexualized metal in the guise of a female body. In any case, there is something in common between the image of the Lady Armaroid and the key works of Sorayama. Be that as it may, as a result, Cobra, having successfully absorbed all the most unusual and relevant for that time, quite naturally turned out to be a real hit. This manga literally from its very launch closed all the cells of the bingo card, the wi

nning result of which was a worldwide success. Therefore, the manga "Space Adventures of Cobra" has long been one of the most popular titles published in Jampa, and the tankōbon edition of Cobra has sold over 50 million copies. Yes, it's not that much compared to Naruto, One Piece or Dragon Ball, but it's still on the same level as titles like Berserk, Onizuka Cool Teacher or Initial D. So at that point in the manga industry, Buichi Terasawa was a real rising rock star, despite the fact that he

was then only about 25 years old. And he was so cool that, as a great exception, he was allowed to prepare a new chapter of the manga beyond the weekly deadline, despite the fact that his work was still published in the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, in the title of which the word WEEKLY means weekly. And the thing is that Terasawa was very demanding and scrupulous about the quality of his drawing and therefore physically could not fit into such a tight time frame, so the editor of the magazine, w

ho himself was in some way a fan of Cobra, went to such a peculiar concessions. And at least in the video about Go Nagai, I talked about how he turned the entire industry upside down in the early 70s, making manga more adult, serious and cruel. But the one who turned this industry upside down once again was definitely Buichi Terasawa. And by the way, there is even a photo of them together, in which these two bad guys after the science fiction festival in the 99th year sit together and eat. And i

f, looking at Nagai, the title of a rock star of his time can be applied to him very conditionally, then Terasawa, with all his appearance, fully corresponds to this image. Without knowing his line of work, one can assume that this is some popular Japanese actor or some kind of film producer, but certainly not someone who sits in a sweaty and stuffy basement and draws manga for nerds all day long. And since his manga is at its peak of popularity, the next logical step is to give it a full-fledge

d anime adaptation. And even here, all the stars aligned for Cobra, as it will be directed by Osamu Dezaki, a man who has previously worked on many already classic titles such as Lupine, Dororo or Tomorrow Joe. So it was simply impossible to imagine a more suitable candidate for this position at that time. True, first in the 82nd year of Cobra a full-length film will be released, which, despite a good picture, will actually turn out to be very average. The fact is that the plot there was signifi

cantly compressed and redrawn, which, as a result, turned out to be a little strange. But apparently, in this way, the TMS studio was just trying to probe whether the audience needed an anime adaptation of Cobra at all. And it turned out that it is still needed, since in just a couple of months the broadcast of a full-fledged anime series will begin, which this time will more closely correspond to its original source, and at the same time share its cult status with it. And looking at how this an

ime series turned out, it becomes obvious that the studio did not spare any resources during its production, since it still looks juicy and spectacular, even by the standards of modern animation, and even more so easily does almost everyone their peers. And besides, the anime series turned out to be not just a clumsy visualization of the manga in order to stupidly promote its source, but a full-fledged multi-episode incarnation in which absolutely everything was coolly done. And animation, and c

olor, and sound, and interesting visual solutions, and unusual framing, because of which the output turned out to be a golden classic, which after years can be reviewed and revised. However, despite all the successes, at some point, that the release of the anime series that the release of the manga came to an end. And then a natural question arose: what to do next? And Terasawa's answer was quite obvious - Of course, keep experimenting. So he, being an adherent of technological progress, is star

ting to move away from the concept of the classic black and white manga drawn on a sheet of paper, and is increasingly looking towards digital drawing. So in the 85th year, the Black Knight Bat manga was born, which Terasawa drew mainly on a computer, and therefore , unlike the canonical manga, it turned out to be in color and with a large abundance of objects created using 3D modeling. By the standards of the 85th year of release, it was definitely a kind of complete dump of the ass, but since

the plot of the story turned out to be very weak, there was certainly no question of the repeated success of Cobra. However, for Terasawa, this only meant that he just had to keep moving in that direction until something finally worked out. И через пару лет в 87-ом году он переключается с фантастики на киберпанк и начинает работу над широко известной в узких кругах мангой под названием «Гоку: Полуночный глаз», которую в последствии экранизирует Ёсиаки Кавадзири. Про получившийся результат я расс

казывал в одном из своих прошлых видео, посвященного творчеству Кавадзири, ссылка на которое появится в подсказке справа вверху. И хоть манга получилась местами интересной, да ещё и в очередной раз цветной, но по неизвестным причинам её сюжет прекратился на полуслове, так и не дойдя до хоть сколько-нибудь важного момента, после которого читатели смогли бы в эту работу действительно влюбиться. Возможно, дело в том, что Гоку уж слишком был похож на Кобру из-за чего на его фоне выглядел вторично, в

о всём тому уступая. Тем не менее Тэрасава продолжил двигаться в выбранном им направлении, и в 93-ем году явил миру мангу под названием «Такэру», главный герой которой на этот раз ещё больше походил на Кобру, чем тот же самый Гоку. Но примечательным в ней оказалось то, что как гласит популярная версии, это была первая полностью цифровая манга, которая распространялась в виде интерактивного комикса для приставки 3DO. Если, конечно, перелистывание страниц можно хоть как-то назвать интерактивом. Но

поскольку манга сопровождалась музыкой, звуковыми эффектами, подрагиванием экрана и всем таким, это всё-таки создавало совсем иной уровень восприятия, нежели во время прочтения обычного бумажного издания. Какие-то энтузиасты эту игру даже умудрились перевести на русский язык, так что при особом желании этот музейный экспонат можно даже самостоятельно пощупать. Но несмотря на все попытки у Тэрасавы как-то не особо получилось из своих экспериментов сделать хоть сколько-нибудь рабочую историю. И в

от тут-то пазл в его голове сложился – чтобы привлечь к необычному формату зрителей и читателей, нужно использовать в сюжете не никому неизвестного героя, а того, с кем люди уже как минимум знакомы. Так Тэрасава вновь возвращается к Кобре, но уже экспериментируя непосредственно с ним. И в итоге по Кобре выйдет целый десяток игр, как и визуальные новеллы, так и всратые шутеры от третьего лица, так и вновь интерактивные комиксы. Причём многие из них по итогу окажутся действительно годными. Но апог

еем творческого и экспериментального безумия Тэрасавы, про который я попросту не могу не упомянуть, окажется вышедшая в 99-ом году манга под названием Gun Dragon Σ, полностью сделанная при помощи 3D моделирования, а также при участии живой актрисы. Так что на этот раз читатели могли полюбоваться самой настоящей живой трехмерной женской задницей, а не двумерной пародией на неё. И на самом деле мне трудно сказать было тогда это круто или нет, так как требования к компьютерной графике в те времена

были куда ниже, чем сейчас и мы без каких-либо проблем смотрели Детей Шпионов. Но в современной реальности такое изображение кажется не то, что плохим, оно выглядит пугающе жутко. Это, даже, в принципе, не говоря о том, что это уже в четвертый раз сюжет о том, как кто-то в красном костюме охотится за плохишами в космосе. В общем говоря, сколько бы Тэрасава не заигрывал с технологиями и не пытался уйти в эксперименты, все пути вели его обратно к Кобре. Так что в честь 30-тилетия своего героя, он

к нему в очередной раз вернулся, но уже не в качестве мангаки, а в качестве аниме режиссера. Так в 2008-ом году выходит 4-х серийная OVA под заголовком «Психоружье». Но, к сожалению, можно сказать, что она окажется достаточно провальной. И дело совсем не в том, что даже в аниме Тэрасава в очередной раз зачем-то запихнул своё любимое 3D, а просто потому, что сам по себе типаж Кобры к этому моменту уже бесповоротно устарел. Он органично себя чувствует в 80-ых и отлично существует в контексте того

времени. Но в современной действительности нужно очень хорошо постараться, чтобы такой герой смотрелся всё также хорошо, как и 30 лет назад. Потому и две другие последующие экранизации, режиссурой которых уже займутся совсем другие люди, не окажутся сильно лучше и вряд ли смогут хоть в какой-то мере впечатлить настолько, насколько это получалось у сериала 82-го года. Ну на самом-то деле и пусть. Кобра ценен не тем, что он долгоиграющий герой, а именно тем, что он отражение своей эпохи. А поэтому

вместо того, чтобы бесконечно доить одного и того же героя, ему на смену начали приходить другие персонажи, на которых он оказал непосредственное влияние, но которые на этот раз отвечали абсолютно другим запросам аудитории. Причём для своего времени они окажутся настолько же хороши и самобытны, что тут же станут самой настоящей классикой. Насколько хорошо смотрелся Кобра в контексте Харлока, настолько же хорошо в контексте Кобры смотрятся Триган, Ковбой Бибоп или Космический Дэнди. Последний и

вовсе является на него открытой пародией, при этом от этого, не теряя своё собственное лицо. Да и весь тот сумасшедший культ на ярко красные плащи, который мы в начале нулевых наблюдали везде где только можно, это тоже своего рода заслуга пирата по прозвищу Кобра. При том, что он сам по себе то красного плаща никогда и не носил. И если ты ещё с самого начала видео задаешься вопросом, а какое вообще отношение к Кобре имеет Гатс, так как между ними нет абсолютно ничего общего. То тут дело в том, ч

то на создание Hand Cannon'а, или говоря проще, руки-пушки Гатса в амплуа чёрного мечника Кэнтаро Миуру вдохновило психоружье, спрятанное в руке Кобры. И вроде бы это не такая уж и значительная деталь, тем не менее Hand Cannon, как и Dragon Slayer, является одним из главных и наиболее узнаваемых атрибутов образа Гатса. Вот такая вот сумасшедшая и вездесущая преемственность поколений. Несмотря на то, что кроме Кобры у Буити Тэрасавы так и не получилось написать ещё одну легендарную историю, вся е

го деятельность служит примером того, как не делая шедевр за шедевром можно при этом влиять на других авторов и всю индустрию. Более 30-ти лет назад он считал крутой идеей распространять мангу только лишь в цифровом варианте, а уже сейчас для нас такой расклад вполне в порядке вещей. Да и в целом, как мы знаем, в итоге манга-художники всё больше отходили от классического метода рисования и нередко в своих работах прибегали к помощи компьютера, и, как пример, Оку Хироя, автор манги Гантз, частень

ко в своем рисунке использовал цифровое моделирование для создания предметов и окружения. И спустя года это даже не выглядело как-то уж слишком плохо, а скорее даже, что наоборот. Да и тот всратый Берсерк 2017-го года выхода это, ни в коем разе не халтура создателей сериала, а всего лишь огромная дань уважения в сторону любви Тэрасавы к 3D моделям. Так что вот тебе интересная история о том, как человек, создавший всего лишь одного культового героя, навсегда изменил видение других авторов, индуст

рию и всю мировую культуру в принципе, при этом спустя года, к сожалению, оставшись в тени. Так что бегом читать, смотреть и играть в Кобру для того, чтобы прикоснуться к прекрасному и шарить за классику, тем более что такого больше нет и уже тем более никогда не будет. А всем пацанам и пацанессам, которые не просто смотрят видео, но ещё и поддерживают мой канал, я выражаю огромный респект. У меня там накопился уже миллион сценариев и идей, думая о которых, так и чешутся руки чтобы воплотить их

скорее в явь, так что если ты хочешь ускорить процесс выхода следующего видео, то чекай ссылки в описании и жми все необходимые кнопки. Ну а пока – пока!