8 Man After (1993) User Reviews

Anime meets Robocop

[JG2001 · 7/10 · 3 October 1999]

This film is an excellent action film where you can turn your brain off and just watch as a human turned cyborg goes after a crimelord called the puppetmaster, who uses cyborgs of his own to control the city. Probably the most dimensional character is the washed up football player who has cyborg implants put in that just cause him and his son more trouble.

Some of the English dubbed dialogue was a bit messed up, as it is in many foreign films, but other than that the voices were coherent and the story was as good as an action film could get.

8 MAN is an outstanding example of the Japanese culture

[ebiros2 · 7/10 · 11 September 2012]

One thing that impresses me about the Japanese culture is that it really does first class job of creating its own culture. When you go to Japan, you can see the interest people has on intellectual subjects just from the sheer number of book stores you see there. Also go into any stationary store and you'll note that they have the best stationaries, and writing equipments in the world. This is a sharp contrast from any other Asian countries, and maybe the chief reason why Japan is the only preeminent first world country in Asia.

Eighthman, or Eitoman is one example of that culture. Mind you, the original comic appeared in the early '60s. First robot that I know of that has plastic skin that can be formed to disguise himself to anyone he chooses. A robot that can run at supersonic speed. This is idea that really ahead of its time as no other robot since then had a feature like this.

In the original comic, Eitoman was a peaceful character. He would not maim a weaker human being. But this Eitoman is different. He doesn't mind hurting his human opponents.

I don't know how much the original author Kazumasa Hirai was involved with this movie, but the style is very different from the original Eitoman.

I'm not for this version of the Eitoman character very much, although I'm very fond of the original Eitoman.

I hope that the Japanese will keep the Eitoman franchise alive. It's one of a kind first class robot genre action adventure. Keep this fantastic robot's stories coming.

Wasted potential after 30 years

[rashidehzaz · 7/10 · 8 November 2023]

So I stumbled across this anime many years ago, but only having the time now to see due to how cool the animation is for it's time and that's the charm of 90s anime.

Aside from the animation and action which were redeemable, the story was OK along with the voice acting, I've seen worse than this. Overall it's a nice anime flick, just don't expect something grand as it's your typical grim dark 90s anime.

This could've kick started its own anime series with it's own arc and may outbeat Astro boy but alas the lack of interest shelved it for decades, without this, there wouldn't be 6 million dollar man or Robocop for that matter.

7/10, just because I'm generous

P.s. Let's hope Hollywood could pick this up and maybe, just maybe they could pull it off or be another RoboCop rip-off to casuals 🙈

look into the future

[tanguman · 17 December 1999]

i found this movie to be one of the many animes about cyborgs, this one has a twist, the cyborg is having trouble controlling his aggression when taking on bad guys. The thought that he is becoming as violent as the enemy he must stop is causing him to doubt his affectiveness as a hero. the only thing that makes him continue are the few memories of how he died and how he must stop the killer at all cost

English dubbing ruined it

[jimvandemoter-50236 · 1/10 · 14 January 2021]

I'm sure I'd give it a much higher rating if the english dubbing wasn't so terrible. I want to hear the original language of any foreign movie with subtitles. I'm an extremely fast reader so subtitles don't bother me, in fact I welcome them. If you absolutely have to dub at least get people who can act. I know this will offend people but I don't care.

Part of the legend and tradition of animated SciFi

[madfedor · 8/10 · 17 February 2006]

The Perfect Collection brings to one "film" all the episodes of this story, and I was glad to find this VHS when I did. I grew up with the original "8th" Man TV series in black and white, during the same TV era as Astro Boy, Ultra Man and continued with Speed Racer. Even though those productions were somewhat raw, the underlying themes and cultural sensibilities spoke to me at the gut level.

This is not a "modernized" version of the original. It stands alone as the retelling of the story by new writers and artists, making their choices and giving it their style.

No character is flat. None of them is without some sort of flaw or inconsistency. This is story and character development at its finest, even with the production flaws when compared to more modern efforts. On my copy of the video tape, the major flaw was in the audio tracks, but it's still watchable and enjoyable. The poor audio is the only reason I took my rating down a peg from a 9 out of 10.

I do have one complaint: the character of 8 man seriously pre-dates Robocop, and while it is speculative to say that Robocop was directly based on 8 man, it is totally wrong to say that 8 man was based on Robocop. Please, do your research before making such claims.

Another one...

[patrickfilbeck · 2/10 · 5 December 2021]

8 Man is not just another anime with a totally stupid title, but also one of those many anime productions that, for some incomprehensible reason, has been hailed as a cult classic by many fans of Japanese factory cartoons. It is only the slightly better drawings (compared to the large mass of the bad anime film genre) that do not push the film down to 0 stars. Or 1 Star, because you can't give no star at imdb.

One of my first exposures to anime.

[BlazeFox · 10/10 · 16 July 2005]

Before Cartoon Network had Toonami and Adult Swim, the budding "Sci-Fi Channel" had a weekly marathon they called "Saturday Anime." They'd play stuff like Cashaun: Robot Hunter, Tank Police, Project A-Ko, and my favorite: 8-man After. This wasn't Tiny Toons or Chip & Dale, this was the extreme world of Japanese animation. I don't remember much of it since I was 12 when I had seen it, but 8-man is a complicated hero who not only must battle the bad guys but must fight to keep himself sane as well, less he kill everyone around him.

He shreds through the air at lightning speeds and though he is ashamed of it, he gets his energy from a kind of cyber-dope. A company called "Bio-Tech" has been manufacturing the drugs and the cybernetic limbs and selling them to street gangs as well as a football team. The team goes berzerk and sets their sites on the spectators, 8-Man loses his grip and he mercilessly kills the players to save the innocent. The girl he had earlier saved screams at him, calling him a monster.

8-Man begins to question if he really is in control of himself. It is a very twisty and emotional piece that pulls you in. Before Sci-Fi ran the stuff I didn't even know anime existed, now its EVERYWHERE!