Cigar-chomping space outlaw Cobra (voiced by Nachi Nozawa) is the galaxy’s most wanted criminal. Despite the hefty price on his head, he can’t resist flirting with sexy bounty-hunter Jane Flower (Akiko Nakamura) when she saunters into an interstellar disco, and later saves her life from minions of the corrupt Galactic Guild. Turns out, Jane and her equally alluring sisters Catherine (Toshiko Fujita) and Dominique (Jun Fubuki) form three aspects of the Empress of the Universe, ruler of the planet Myras, who will manifest when all fall in love with the same man. Cobra and his shapely android assistant Andromeda help Jane bust Catherine out of a prison-planet, but fall afoul of Crystal Boy (Goro Mutsumi), the evil lord of the Galactic Guild. A hypnotised Catherine stabs Jane to death and its up to Cobra to trace Dominique, save her from a similar fate and prevent Crystal Boy from ruling Myras and the universe at large.
Adapting his own 1978 manga, Buichi Terasawa concocts a hip, sexy, psychedelic space opera that typifies his idiosyncratic style. His artwork has a more European flavour, heavily influenced by bandes dessinées while the script distils his many obsessions - madcap futuristic gadgetry, James Bond (note the terrific, Maurice Binder-style opening credits) and Clint Eastwood movies, Philip K. Dick, and especially Barbarella (1967), whose star Jane Fonda inspired Jane Flower and numerous other Terasawa heroines - into a consistently exciting, fast-moving adventure. Terasawa makes no secret of his fetish for leggy blondes and peppers the narrative with scantily clad beauties who shed their clothes, shag the hero then die. On the plus side, the film presents them as tough, capable action heroines and not screaming bimbos.
This feature length outing was followed the same year by a television series more faithful to the manga. It restored the original premise, which predates Total Recall (1990), wherein bored 24th century businessman Mr. Johnson buys a virtual vacation at the Trip Movie Corporation only to discover that his fantasy holiday as space pirate Cobra triggers real, suppressed memories. This intriguing subplot also excused some of Cobra’s more outlandish feats since, being superhumanly strong and possessed of a .44 magnum and an all-powerful “psycho-gun” concealed in his right arm, he is virtually indestructible. However, the film pits him against a suitably creepy and omniscient supervillain, the sometimes translucent Crystal Boy (or Lord Necron in the English dub), who has the power to control the dead, wields one of his own solid gold ribs as a weapon and - being undead himself - is immune to the psycho-gun.
Cobra himself emerges as an incorrigible show-off, but a charming one. Unlike his obvious inspiration, Ian Fleming’s James Bond, he isn’t a callous misogynist and shows genuine concern and shock when his friends die. His one-man war against the Galactic Guild is driven by the pursuit of freedom, not money and the story exudes a distrust of authority and “love is all you need” message that betokens a hippie idealism. Western distributors Manga Entertainment replaced the original soundtrack with the Euro-pop stylings of YELLO, which fit the retro-Sixties visuals surprisingly well. While some could dismiss this as an adolescent masturbatory fantasy, it remains well-plotted with numerous crafty twists and turns, plus a degree of pathos alongside its eroticism.
