Space Adventure Cobra

Space Adventure Cobra (スペースアドベンチャーコブラ Cobra Gekijōban) is a 1982 science fiction anime film directed by Osamu Dezaki and produced by TMS Entertainment, based on Buichi Terasawa's manga series Cobra which was serialized on Shueisha's shōnen magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from November 6, 1978 to November 12, 1984, consisting of 18 volumes.

Synopsis
Cobra, a notorious space pirate, is enlisted by bounty hunter Jane to rescue her sister from the strange being known as Crystal Boy, but then finds himself drawn into a complex struggle over the fate of a mysterious wandering planet.

Dubbing History[]

Both dubs of the movie were produced simultaneously in 1995, one for the British market and one for the American market. The first to be released was the British version, which was dubbed by Manga UK and released to British cinemas in early 1995. The Manga dub is distinguished by its unique soundtrack, which replaces the entirety of the film's original score by Osamu Shoji, as well as the theme songs "Daydream Romance" (sung by Shigeru Matsuzaki, who voices Cobra in the Japanese version) and "Stay" (sung by the pop trio EVE), with songs by the Swiss pop duo Yello. Discotek Media was unable to include this dub in their earlier DVD and Blu-ray releases of the film due to the high cost of renegotiating the rights to the songs used for the soundtrack, although a Blu-ray of the UK version has been be scheduled for release in 2026, after Discotek obtained Yello's permission to use their music. Prior, this dub was included on the original French DVD release.

The alternate dub, produced by Carl Macek's Streamline Pictures, was released to American theaters in August 20, 1995 by Tara Releasing. It would prove to be the final film to be dubbed by Streamline due to their home media distributor, Orion Home Video, experiencing financial hardship; their dub of the film would ultimately make its VHS debut through Urban Vision on June 16, 1998. The Streamline version retains Shoji's score, although (for reasons unknown) the theme songs are presented with the lead vocals mixed out.

Cast[]

Character	Seiyū	Manga UK Dub	Streamline Dub
Cobra	Shigeru Matsuzaki	William Dufris	Daniel Woren
Lady Armanoid	Yoshiko Sakakibara	Tamsin Hollo	Joan-Carol O'Connell
Crystal Bowie	Gorō Mutsumi	David McAlister	Jeff Winkless
Jane Flower	Akiko Nakamura	Lorelei King	Barbara Goodson
Catherine Flower	Toshiko Fujita		Mari Devon
Dominique Flower	Jun Fubuki		Wendee Lee
Sandra	Reiko Tajima	Shelley Thompson	Catherine Battistone
Professor Toporo	Akira Kume	Allan Wenger	Kirk Thornton
Dakoba	Kenichi Ogata	Allan Wenger	Jeff Winkless
Sheriff	Norio Wakamoto	John Chancer	Steve Bulen

Additional Voices:

Manga UK

John Baddeley - Brutus
Jay Benedict - Cassius, Guild Officer
Laurel Lefkow - Soldier, Snow Bus PA
Liza Ross - Snow Bus Attendant
Peter Marinker - Guild Officer

Streamline

Steve Bulen - Bartender, Guild Officer, Snow Bus PA
Melora Harte - Soldier, Tourist
Carl Macek - Guild Officer, Barfly, Customer
Brianne Siddall - Snow Bus Attendant

Notes[]

William Dufris is credited under the allonym of "John Guerrasio". An actor named John Guerrasio had also done various dubbing roles for Manga UK; so for many years it was assumed that Guerrasio actually provided the voice of Cobra. Dufris' involvement was later confirmed when he listed Cobra on his voice.com profile.^[1]
- This mistake likely indicates that Guerrasio was originally cast as Cobra, and was replaced last-minute by Dufris, without the credits changed to reflect this change.

Video Releases[]

Year	Dub	Region	Country
1995	Manga	PAL	United Kingdom
1998	Streamline	NTSC	United States
2001	Manga	2 PAL	France
2007	Streamline	4 PAL	Australia
2008		2 PAL	United Kingdom
2012		1 NTSC	United States
2015		A DVB-T
2019
2026	Manga