Ask John: Has Buichi Terasawa Been Influential on Anime and Manga?

Question:
Terasawa Buichi seems to be regarded as influential and famous in the world of manga: I’ve read numerous articles on him in multiple langauges praising his creative vision, “hardboiled” stories, erotic female character designs, and pioneering of computer generated manga artwork. But in what way is he influential? Space Adventure Cobra’s fantastic creatures and locations seem largely indebted to Star Wars, few manga or anime appear to follow Buichi’s style of pulp fiction and “American” female character designs (large breasts, hips and buttock), and I haven’t seen computer generated manga artwork outside of the CG Cobra artwork he’s created in the past six years. Am I missing something?

Terasawa only seems to have penned five or so manga series over twenty five years. Terasawa’s anime adaptations: Cobra, Gokuu, and Kabuto are relatively short-lived and not as successful compared to the likes of Cyborg 009 or Lupin III. Cobra may have acheived a lasting cult status among otaku (there are references to Cobra in Otaku no Video and Excel Saga), but was Cobra or Terasawa’s larger body of works ever influential?

Answer:
Honestly speaking, I think that whether or not I would call Buichi Terasawa “influential” would depend upon how carefully I was choosing my words at the time. In the absence of obvious evidence, it’s probably only experienced Japanese animators that could definitely confirm whether not Terasawa’s work has been influential. My own opinion on the question will be heavily based in speculation. I’ll say first that it’s important to remember that being influential means only that something has influenced something else. Something need not be obviously apparent in later works to be influential. In other words, it’s quite possible that Terasawa’s influence has been most prominent not on anime or manga, but on Japanese artists.

While I agree that works including Kabuto and Midnight Eye Goku may not be fondly remembered or highly respected (not that they’d bad; they’re just not high profile), Space Adventure Cobra has achieved a degree of lasting recognition, as represented by its appearance in Excel Saga, and more recently its revival as a Namco arcade shooting game. There’s nothing particularly original about Cobra. Beside the influence of Star Wars, Cobra exhibits characteristics of the cigar chomping spaghetti western cowboy gunslinger, James Bond, and even Maria the robot from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Cobra put these disparate elements together in manga and anime, and along with series including Lupin the 3rd and Golgo 13, may have introduced generations of young and malleable future artists to concepts of hardboiled, adult themed action manga and anime. While the exact characteristics of Cobra may not be directly traceable in anime and manga that followed, I think it’s quite possible that Cobra may be partly responsible for encouraging the evolution of especially the anime industry. While I have no doubt that Spike Spiegel would still have sprung forth in 1998, and undoubtedly Spike owes a lot to Arsene Lupin III, I think Spike and Cowboy Bebop, along with many other anime anti-heroes and hardboiled sci-fi action series, owe some debt of gratitude to Cobra for helping pioneer the character type and genre.

The Kabuto and Midnight Eye Goku anime didn’t come until the 90s, but Space Adventure Cobra was one of the early, and I suspect, influential anime series of the early 1980s that helped define early 1980s anime as frequently psychedelic, hardboiled, violent and sexy. I don’t mean to give more credit than is due, and I’m aware that there are other factors involved, however, I think it’s an interesting coincidence that there’s been no Buichi Terasawa anime in the past several years, and during that same period of time the moe and bishoujo genres of anime have become prominent while Terasawa-style sexy and provocative anime have receded into the background of the anime community. I think it’s very possible that Buichi Terasawa’s work has influenced the philosophy and perception of anime rather than the technical creation of anime.