The only downside is that it never breaks the mold of this formulaic construct associated with your garden variety spy/thriller stories. These missions can range from espionage to your classic assassination showdowns. The show is like a hybrid of the James Bond, Charlie's Angels, The Bionic Woman and several other titles that fall within the secret agent sub-genre. Now, where the movie buffs would be pleased is the way each episode plays out. With buildups that led into frenetic spurts of action in every episode, the anime made sure that the narrative was never dragging on its heels. With the help of cybernetics and acquired skills as a secret agent, we watch her take on these missions either by herself or with the assistance of other members. Presented in a semi-episodic structure, a majority of the series follow the stand-alone missions of 009-1. The anime revolves around the escapades of one of these spies, Mylene Hoffman, or better known by her codename, 009-1. One of the primary methods they often utilized were the use of secret intelligence operatives, or spies if you prefer, to either implant counterintelligence information or to gather intel on the enemy. While presenting peace and negotiation to the public, behind the scenes, these two governing bodies of each wing are waging war against each other, in an endless pursuit to proclaim dominion over the opposing side. The story takes place in an alternate timeline where the Cold War never ended, as the world is split into two factions, the East and West block. This is immediately made apparent from the setting and subject matter it chooses to inhabit. Following the narrative of a Hollywood spy flick, 009-1 not only takes a page from retro animes' book in how it looks but also the spy thrillers from that era of film as well. What makes it different, however, is the kind of content it chooses to cover. While presented with a little more class than your macho men solving issues with their fists, 009-1 still contains that old school aesthetic with its art style and story structure, borrowing heavily from the early Tatsunoko Production era of animated works. They knew that this wasn't your ordinary cartoons on TV, this was violent, this was "adult," this was awesome! A time when curious kids, their older cousins, and best friends, would secretly gather to watch Ninja Scroll, MD Geist, Tekkaman Blade or what have you, and knew that this was something different. It's targeted towards the people that have lived through the days where sheepishly purchasing a VHS copy of animated ultra-violence from the video store was the norm and would often leave a hole in your wallet. It's a show made for those anime fans that have been around long enough before programming was merely a click away, and the idea of simulcasting was still just a wet dream. But where something like Kill la Kill and Parasyte is trying to use that appeal, while also adhering to modern day sensibilities, for 009-1, I think it's safe to say that it's targeted to a different crowd altogether. With entries like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Hunter X Hunter, Sailor Moon Crystal, Parasyte and Kill la Kill, to just name a few, 009-1 is more or less an earlier case of this. But perhaps this is the right time for it to make a resurgence in the public consciousness, as this very appeal has recently gotten in the forefront of what's dominating the conversation in the community.Īs of late, there's been a growing trend in adapting older anime/manga titles or adhering to the aesthetic qualities of them to either retrofit it to a newer audience or to service the older fans of the medium. An appeal, that, at the time, wasn't something the anime market was yearning for. A huge contributing factor as to why this might have happened, outside of the popularity of the previously mentioned works, could be the appeal that 009-1 was going for. the general public's eye has only gotten more commonplace.Ġ09-1 is yet another statistic of this occurrence, being passed up for the far more popular Death Note, Code Geass, Welcome to the NHK, Higurashi, Black Lagoon, Gintama, Ouran High School Host Club and much more that aired that same year. And with the number of title releases increasing drastically in the 2010s, the chances of those stragglers falling out of The kind of titles that would only be talked about after they develop a devoted cult following or are merely picked up by happenstance by viewers browsing the catalogs of yesteryear. This constant barrage of entries often means that many shows will inevitably fall into the cracks of obscurity, regardless of what it may have to offer. With so many anime titles being released year after year, it's hard to keep track of them all, let alone watch a handful before another batch is delivered.
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