Cyborg 009: Kaijuu Sensou

A year after the first movie, Toei animation pushed out the sequel with pretty much the same cast. Monster Wars takes place sometime after the first movie as the Cyborg team are living separated in each of their own country. Until one day a giant monster appears out of nowhere and in causing mayhem and destruction in many sites of the world. Dr.Gilmore fears for the worst and reassemble the cyborg team to fight yet again.

For once I want to say that even for a movie made by Toei that only had one year, it’s better than the first movie. Let me explain. This movie ... again adapts the two first arcs from the manga, but this time it feels like a movie rather than something put together.

It has better pacing, better direction and the story structure feel more organized than the previous movie. Even if the movie sometimes jumps between scenes way too fast.

The interaction between characters has improved since the last movie, even if Joe is still doing the dirty work. Besides that, the introduction to the characters are done much better here than the previous movie. For once we see what kind life everyone had before they turned into cyborgs. Everyone except for the black guy! What’s up with that?

The action is same as the before, stupid but entertaining. It’ all just for innocent fun. Even the comedy seem to have gotten a bit better, even if it can get racist.

Cons:
But for all the praise I give, there is still problems from the first one. The animation isn’t as impressive as you expect from something that is qualified as a movie.

The scenes, as I said, can go way too fast for us to even care. Like the scene in the opening when 003 didn’t want to fight, but changed her mind in the next scene without any proper explanation. They also seems to explain 001 power twice in the movie, which is odd consider how the group already knows what power they possesses.

The villain is uninteresting, it just a statue that talks and sometimes moves.

And then there this unexpected cameos at the middle of the ocean. Just what are they? A flying robot nurse joy and a guy with a cat?! They don’t bring anything to the movie at all, but the movie suddenly focuses on these characters. And it’s too obscure for me to know where they from!

Neither less, the movie is like an improved version of previous one. In fact you can skip the previous one and still miss anything that important since the character are getting reintroduced in this one.

So if you want, you can check this one if you liked the first one. It might be stupid, but hey, it’s the 60’s.