It's quite clear who the Cartoon Superpowers of this world are, if it's not Japanese, American, French, Canadian or British then you really start diving into unknown territory; Italy, Spain & Germany produce a couple, Russia is just weird and Australia according to some people are alienating children but if I were to say Argentina, you would wonder what cartoon I could possibly talk about?
Well presenting this week in Cartoon Vault, Argentine superhero Cybersix.
Cybersix began as an early 90s comic series about a genetically engineered superhero fighting her creators monstrous bio-weapons during nighttime while acting as a "male" literature teacher as a civilian identity during the day; as to why, she needs their substance to sustain herself and it acts as a form of revenge against her creator, it's all good.
The story goes, a former Nazi from the war named Dr. Von Reichter flees to South America in order to continue his genetic engineer experiments after the war ended. He created a 5000 strong army of cyber humans built to be perfect servants but did his job a little too well and gave them free will so he ordered to have the entire series massacred. The only two survivors were Cyber-29 who died before the massacre happened and the brain was transferred into a Black Panther and renamed Data-7, the other being Cyber-6 who managed to escape thanks to a slave. So were a short while into the plot and were looking at some pretty risky stuff here but the comic made no qualms about it's content; Cybersix's outfit was stolen from a prostitute, there's sexual content, the obvious Nazi references and in the comics she got her substance from draining her victims vampire style, it's clearly not for kids.
Thankfully the cartoon manages to tone it down enough to play without controversy. We go to the fictional Argentine city of Meridiana where to avoid being discovered, Cybersix adopts the identity of a "Male" School Teacher named Adrian Seidelman but it's not long before fellow teacher/love interest Lucas Amato gets dragged into Cybersix's battles. Also being dragged into the war is a kid named Julian and the panther Data-7 who switches to Cybersix's side very quickly. Von Reichter doesn't always do the battling himself, leaving it to his clone and son Jose and his army of mutants, this is where the slapstick for the cartoon comes into it as Jose and his goons are obviously incompetent but the story can survive without comedy.
This cartoon came in 1999, four years after Batman re-established a bit of action and grittiness in cartoons, however it's short run of 13 episodes makes it an under-appreciated gem of it's era. It was developed as a collaboration between Argentine & Canadian animation companies and had some animation duties outsourced to Japan's TMS Entertainment. It would broadcast in those countries along with America although according to my sister it also broadcast in the UK.
There is currently no DVD release but Discotek Media have the rights to it and hope to release in 2014. They are the same company who successfully released Samurai Pizza Cats in it's unedited Japanese form, so the show is in safe hands.
