[Originally posted to Tumblr on: August 16, 2018.]
Week number two of the Weekly Spotlight!
Today, I’m going to be discussing a TV show that is very near and dear to my heart. And that is—–
*Drum roll*
Cybersix!
This show has a bit of a seedy history and as such, it can often be seen with quite a fair amount of equal criticism and controversy for… reasons that will become apparent the further that we get into this review.
The story Cybersix follows a genetically modified woman that is the last of her series, the Cyber series. Found to have a gene that has made the Cyber series “too defiant”, Cybersix’s creator, Doctor Von Reichter, orders his minions to destroy the 5000 Cybers including Cyber number six. However, Cyber-6 (or Cybersix as she is referred to as) manages to escape to a city known as Meridiana and assumes the alias of Adrian Seidelman— an English schoolteacher at local highschool. During the day, Cybersix lives out the normal, everyday life of Adrian Seidelman, but during the night, Cyber becomes a cape-toting, leather-clad superhero who fights to protect her place in Meridiana as well as the inhabitants from her creator’s evil schemes to capture and destroy her. She meets a various cast of characters such as Lucas Amato, a high school biology teacher and potential love interest; Lori, a high school student with a HUGEEE crush on Adrian; Julian, a local homeless boy who quickly becomes Cyber’s friend; and even meets a friend from her past, her brother-turned-black-panther named Data-7. (Yes, I literally mean her brother was turned into a black panther. No, I’m not joking. This is actually canon.) She also gains various foes along the way, such as Jose, the boy genius with the temper of a fiend; Terra, a clay monster created to destroy Cybersix; Elaine, a werewolf creation made to sniff out wherever Cyber made be; and various other foes and plots made to take down Cybersix. And all the while, Cybersix must keep her identity a secret from the people she cares about in order to keep them safe.
Seems pretty simple right? How could something so innocent go so wrong?
Oh, you sweet summer child. Let me explain…
Cybersix was originally an Argentinian comic written by Carlos Trillo and illustrated by Carlos Meglia in 1992, for an Italian comic magazine named, Skorpio. Having read the first couple volumes of the comic myself, I can definitely tell you that this series was not intended for children. The main villain of the series, Doctor Von Reichter, is an escaped Nazi— which in and of itself doesn’t make Cybersix terrible. After all, Indiana Jones fought Nazis in both Raider’s of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. Except… well…
Yeah…
And I mean, it doesn’t really end there. There are various panels where there are explicit sex scenes, various amounts of… what I can best describe as “fetish porn”, racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia—- I could go on and on. Really, this comic is not for the faint of heart. As someone who adores Cybersix, I can tell you that the majority of the people who like the series are completely and utterly against the terrible crimes that are committed within the comics. But how could such a fandom love a series so deeply, yet hate its source material so much?
Let me introduce you to the Cybersix animated series— the saving grace of this dreadful comic.
Interestingly enough, in 1999, Cybersix was transformed into an animated series that was produced by a Canadian company based in Vancover called, Network of Animation (NOA). However, the actual animation of the series was done by a company in Japan called, TMS Entertainment. So, those of you out there trying to classify it as an anime or a cartoon— I salute you! The series was originally intended to be made into 2 seasons to air on Teletoon in Canada and Kids’ Station in Japan, but after conflicts arose between the two production studios, the series ended after one season. As the Japanese station suggests, this series was aimed towards children, removing many of the “adult themes” and a lot of lore that would be either seen as “scary” or inappropriate for children. Outside of Canada and Japan, the series premiered on Fox Kids in the US and Telefe in Argentina.
And my god was this series beautiful.
Although there are many things that were removed from the animated series that I wished they had explored a little bit deeper, (such as Cybersix’s need for what the comic dubs “sustenance,” a neon-green liquid that Cybersix must drink in order to stay alive, that keeps Cyber dependent on her old master, or where Cyber had actually acquired the alias Adrian Siedelman) the animated series cleaned up so much unnecessary crap that it actually makes it possible to enjoy the series now. All the racism, sexism, homophobia is completely removed from the series (except for certain character designs because of the studios’ desire to stick as close to the original designs as possible) and instead, they completely reworked Lucas Amato into a love interest that’s actually likable. And the best part? It’s pretty much canon that Lucas is at least biromantic.
I mean… the flirting is pretty obvious.
When you first sit down to watch this series, it can easily come across as a hot mess of 90′s nostalgia. In some ways, the animation hasn’t exactly aged great (as a lot of the colors come off as stale, and their backgrounds are recycled quite a lot…); the pacing in some of the episodes is flat-out laughable; and they maintained the same voice actress to voice both Adrian and Cybersix— which seems like a good idea until you actually hear her attempt at portraying a male voice. It wasn’t terrible, just… unconvincing. But the thing is once you sit down to watch it, you find yourself sucked right into the story, the characters, and the problems that Cybersix finds herself in. The animation is so smooth and gorgeous, like look at that cape—!
However, you can really see where there was a definite pull in the series to go in two different art-style directions and as a result, it causes some of the animation clash against itself.
But for the most part, everything was fairly smooth and clean.
Most of the episodes are one-off problems (which, I’d be interested to see what they could do if they followed a format similar to Teen Titans, or Avatar:The Last Airbender for instance) and are usually solved by the end of the episode. There are, however, long segments within the series that focus on the weird shenanigans that happen around the child-villain Jose and I’ll be honest, that annoyed the hell out of me. Jose is just annoying as a villain— he’s a whiny, complaining, spoiled brat who has to have everything go his way and throws a temper-tantrum if it doesn’t. To be fair, he’s far worse in the comics but that doesn’t really give him an excuse to be such a star segment in the series. I imagine it’s for slapstick, but either way, it’s just annoying. There were one or two episodes that focused on characters other than Cybersix, and as such, we look at Cybersix from an outside point of view but… these weren’t exactly interesting. I didn’t really care about some of these characters and as such I was bored; they had some good segments in those episode, but really, I was just excited to see Cybersix deal with her problems.
One of the interesting things that they touched upon in the animated series that they pretty much ignore in the comics is the fact that Adrian Seidelman has had an effect on the lives of his students and as such they care about him as a person. He’s not just a mask that Cybersix wears. This persona has a “life” of his own and I felt that they really failed to capture that in the comics, that he wasn’t just an extension of Cybersix but a separate personality and life altogether. I really liked that a lot.
Overall, I love this series so much because I can see so much potential in it. If, by some miracle, it got a reboot, I would probably be the happiest person on the planet! But the odds of that happening are practically nonexistent so… I just sit and dream. Honestly, this series gave me some weird vibes similar to Batman Beyond and Gargoyles in terms of tone and animation (color palette maybe???), so if you’re really into those series, I highly recommend you check it out! Really, I think everyone should check it out just because this series needs a little more love, but I can understand how such a series could turn someone off.
If you’re interested in reading the comic, first off— God have mercy on your soul. Secondly, there are official translations of the comic in French, Spanish and Italian, so if you look those up on Amazon or any similar sites, you’ll probably find them pretty easily. However, there isn’t an official English translation, so if you wish to read in English, you’re going to have to find fan translations online.
I highly recommend the wonderful, the beautiful, Adrian Translates Pessoa ( @cybersix-in-translation ) for their English translations because honestly, they’re so wonderful. I follow them myself and I’m always excited to see they’ve uploaded another page onto their blog. If someone told me that they’re the sole reason that the Cybersix fandom is still alive on Tumblr, it really wouldn’t surprise me. They do great work and really, the fandom is pretty… sparse.
Rating this TV series, I’d easily give it an 7.5 out of 10.
It’s just so enjoyable. I could binge it on a rainy day over and over and over again, and I’d still enjoy it as much as I did the first time I watched it. Does it have its flaws? Sure. All cartoons do. Some of them are more blatant than others but I don’t think that it should take away from its beauty itself. I recommend that anyone who wishes to watch a new and interesting spin the old “caped-crusader” archetype check out what this series has to offer. Personally, I’m going to keep this series on a special shelf with all my favorite cartoons to rewatch later on days when I need a little time to myself.
[Edit (9/22/2018): Having just finished a Weekly Spotlight on Batman Beyond, I decided to link it in case someone’s never heard of it before. Shameless self-promotion. Sue me.]
If there are any corrections you’d like to make in regards to this post, please feel free to send me a message with your corrections and I’ll get back to it as soon as I can!
Do you remember a cartoon your friends have never heard of? Got a scene from an animated film that you’re dying to know the name to? Send your questions to The Cartoon Archivist and I’ll see what I’ve got in the vault!
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