From the four corners of the world, eight cyborgs leave their current civilian lives, putting their dreams of being a race car driver, ballerina, and bull fighter (what?) on hold so that they might help one of their own and also to save Earth! Once they join forces, the greatest super team of all team is back in action! Yes true believer, your suspicions are well-founded! The dream is alive and well! Finally after twenty-five years, the Galaxy Legion has reunited to combat evil, to cast light upon the dark, and to find out how 006’s career as a matador is working out!

When I heard that the Galaxy Legion had come out of retirement, I went abso-frakking-bananas! I immediately went into the dark recesses of my closet, dug through dusty boxes, past my pog collection, beyond my Willow action figures, even below the Powers Of Matthew Star fan club newsletter collection (very fine to mint) and busted out my Galaxy Legion shoe box. I blew the dust off the lid reverently, as if unearthing a religious relic of some long-dead civilization and I would have said “what’s this” mysteriously for drama’s sake, but the elaborately decorated shoe box (with glitter-encrusted portraits of my favorite cyborgs) told me I found what I was seeking!

I opened it up eagerly, the importance of the moment sucking the very breath from me (unless it was the fetid quarter century old air escaping the shoe box that did that) and I peered nervously inside. What I found astounded me! It was a pair of half-tore up Pumas from my junior high days! I shook my head, trying to clear this mirage, but I only saw a pair of smelly old sneakers!

Then I looked again at the box and instead of seeing my expert drawings of Cyborg 009’s previous triumphs over various evil doers, I saw only the faint doodles of logos for rock legends such as RATT and Shaun Cassidy. I looked quizzically into the inky blackness of my closet wondering who could have been so diabolical as to trick me in such a dastardly fashion. These sick freaks even went so far as to flawlessly recreate my distinctive doodling style so that it would look like I had once supported these musicians! Though I can’t argue with my mysterious intruder’s musical taste, the mystery as to what had happened to all my Galaxy Legion memorabilia remained. Then, like some sort of super galaxy, it hit me! I had never heard of the Galaxy Legion and had no idea who the hell they were! Another mystery worthy of the great Encyclopedia Brown solved!

Once this dopey Galaxy Legion is reformed, everyone stands around talking until some little alien kid shows up and crybabies about how his daddy got his ass whupped by this intergalactic baddie named Zoa. The Galaxy Legion decides that now that they have all the plot information they need, they can hop in the Galaxy Legionmobile and fly off for some long, drawn-out space hi-jinks.

The alien kid clues them in on some crazy contraption named a stargate that can act as a short cut across the vast distances of deep space. I was searching for my own stargate about this time, one that would transport me across the vast distances of this movie. Before they get to the stargate though they have an encounter with some land mines masquerading as asteroids. These were laid out by the bad guy in an effort to deter the Galaxy Legion. But as the handful of fans in Japan that the Galaxy Legion has knows, that is much easier said than done. Of course, you’ll be wondering why this Zoa guy just doesn’t blast these poorly animated boobs into atoms, instead of laying stupid little traps that they have to avoid.

After they hit the stargate, the Galaxy Legionmobile starts having mechanical problems and all of us are rolling our eyes at Cyborg 005 since he was the guy that was supposed to get the Galaxy Legionmobile to the shop and have the hydrocrystals replaced every 75,000 parsecs. Luckily, there’s a planet nearby that looks like it’s got breathable air (though I could have sworn I saw some of these cyborgs floating around in space without any helmets on, so what does it matter?) and some hydrocrystals.

Saving the universe gets put on hold, so that they can pit the Legionmobile and get some new crystals, but they run into a little drama on this planet. Everyone has fallen into barbarism because their precious little princess is being held captive inside a hydrocrystal (they’re for more than turbo charging your rig!) and they don’t have any jobs, so what is there to do but run around and menace outer space visitors?

You don’t think something as sissy as a Galaxy Legion is going to be passing up the opportunity to rescue a princess that’s imprisoned in a crystal do you? She sends them a Princess Leia hologram message letting the Galaxy Legion know that if they happen to try and rescue her, they can find her in a necklace worn by a gigantic robot! Next thing you know, one of the cyborgs is dumping a bomb inside this thing’s mouth and we’re putting together the destroyed giant’s earrings to free the princess from her crystal prison. Uh, why was this giant robot wearing earrings? Was he trying out for the Galaxy Legion or something?

Since everyone helped save her, she immediately starts putting the moves on Joe which is probably Cyborg 009’s code name. For some reason Joe sports that hideously priss hair style where one of his eyes is hidden by his hair. How am I supposed to be rooting for these guys when they insist on having women’s hairstyles?

She asks Joe to stay behind and help rebuild her world and that he start with her bedroom! Uh, you’ve known this guy for like five minutes and this is your first real conversation with him and you’re already trying to get him to commit? Doesn’t she know that a member of the Galaxy Legion’s first love is to sail the starways in search of adventure? Well, first love after being a race car driver, ballerina, and rodeo clown, that is, but you know what I’m saying.

Girl Cyborg (I think she was 002), who also loves Joe, shows up around this time and is upset, but Joe turns the Princess down and then Zoa attacks and kills the princess. You can tell that Girl Cyborg is kind of like “awww, shoot. What a bad break. Guess we should get back to the ship and start forgetting her.” No one else really cares either and they go off in pursuit of Zoa. Joe actually has a chance to bring her back to life at the end of the movie and doesn’t. That should be a lesson to all you clingy chicks out there. A cyborg’s logic circuits are infallible after all!

A cruddy little story done with primitive animation featuring a group of largely interchangeable characters that makes you wonder why anyone ever bothered to translate it. I pretty much expect the story in these things to smell like a twenty-five year old pair of Pumas, but they should at least be interesting to look at. This thing was marked by jerky animation, ugly simple drawings, and an unimaginative use of light effects to show such things as going through the stargate and various space encounters. It’s just really off-putting in its cheapness.

Combined with the assembly line save-the-galaxy-from-some-evil-turd story and this is one Japanese cartoon that would confirm a non-anime fans’ suspicions that these things are just dumb kiddie crap starring big-eyed, big-haired freaks that spew one big gooey tear whenever they want to show us pathos. After viewing this, my bowels and stomach starting acting up and my head started to ache. Can you say “Galaxy Legionnaires’ Disease”?

© 2008 MonsterHunter