Eitoman - Subete no sabishii yoru no tame ni

8 Man is a live action version (There is an animated version of 8 Man known in the US as 8th Man and Eitoman in Japan 1964) of the popular '60s comic 8 Man. The movie stars the father and son team of Kai Shishido and Jo Shishido as the lead Hachiro Azuma ( 8 Man's alter ego ) and 8 Man's creator Dr. Tani. The plot does not follow any of the original comic's story, but rather a new creation based on the characters introduced in the comic. The story revolves around triangle between 8 Man, Dr. Tani, and Dr. Tani's cyborg son Ken, relation between Azuma and Sachiko who is not aware that Azuma is actually 8 Man and also her ex fiancée. Ken is not happy about his father resurrecting him from the dead as a cyborg, and wants to destroy 8 Man as display of his unhappiness to his father. He kidnaps Sachiko to lure 8 Man to his trap, but he also has a secret plan that comes from his inner desire. The plot is loosely based on the episode "Duel" which was nor part of the main 8 Man saga, but appeared as a short story featured in Bessatsu Shonen Magazine around 1965. In the episode "Duel" Ken is a cyborg developed by USA (not by Dr. Tani) to bring 8 Man back to the US.

Based on a comic by Jiro Kuwata and Kazumasa Hirai, 8 Man was featured in weekly Shonen Magazine comic from May of 1964. During that time editors of Shonen Magazine was planning a comic which will usurp Tetsuwan Atom (a.k.a. Astroboy) which was featured in the monthly Shonen magazine. They recruited Kazumasa Hirai as the writer, and Jiro Kuwata as the artist to launch a new kind of robot genre comic. Hirai was a science fiction writer, writing for SF Magazine, and Uchujin magazine. Editor of Uchujin magazine Takumi Shibano introduced Hirai to Masami Fukushima who had a weekly column with Shonen Magazine, who in turn introduced him to the project leader for the 8 Man project Masaru Uchida (Uchida will later become the chief editor of Shonen Magazine). Jiro Kuwata already had a series called Gekkokamen (Moonlight Rider which also became TV and a feature movie), was chosen for his clean and sharp artistry. Hirai seemed to have taken some ideas from Superman, as 8 Man can accelerate to great speed, and catch a bullet with his bare hands. In the original plot, 8 Man was a super robot developed at NASA by Dr. Tani, but Tani defected to Japan fearing that 8 Man will be used as weapon of mass destruction. Dr. Tani himself is also a super robot.

In 2005 continuation of 8 Man saga is being featured in Monthly Z Magazine written by Kazumasa Hirai and Takayuki Takauji. Hirai has also written the Wolf Guy series which according to him is a super hero that has body of flesh which 8 Man always wanted but never could get.

In all honesty, the live action movie is a true adaptation of the 8 man cartoon, but I think that's the film's downfall. If this was Dragon Ball Z of Street fighter II this pure adaption would be most welcome. Of course to do that it would mean spending hundreds of millions of dollars to arranged the extreme Martial arts action in those films, hence why Dragon ball evolution really blows.

The Ironic twist is that the filmmakers for 8 man did everything right, but it was too right. The anime it was based on was already cheaply animated and looked just like that. Forget the fact that the cartoon is from the 60's It's still weak if you compare it too other anime from that time line, like Gigantor and speed Racer. The film was obviously b-grade cheap, but I feel that using the same tricks that were done in the cartoon made it too cheesy. In their attempt to mimic 8 man's super powers like his speed they did a disservice to it. They should have come up with something else.

You can be respectable to the original content, but still add something new to the content. Otherwise why do it?

If you want shining metal armor and good special effects,this is not for you, search for something else. But it is much better than RoboCop (mr Verhoeven this trip to USA was a huge mistake). It's a poor cousin of Ridley Scott;s two B.R.s (Blade Runner & Black Rain). Director Y.Horiuchi was a great surprise for me. I'm looking forward to find another work of him, I want to find out if this was a comet or he was an unknown (to me) good director.