サイボーグクロちゃん

サイボーグクロちゃん (Cyborg Kuro-chan, Saibōgu Kurochan) is a Japanese children-teen manga series created by Naoki Yokouchi, serialized in Kodansha's Comic Bom Bom magazine. Eleven volumes of the manga were released between and. It centers on the titular character, a housecat who is kidnapped and modified by a mad scientist to be a part of a cyborg army bent on world domination. Kuro breaks his control chip, escapes and becomes a vigilante. Kuro has many allies, who help him out during instances such as urban destruction, parallel universes, outer space, and battles between other cats and cyborgs.

サイボーグクロちゃん was adapted into an anime series produced by Studio Bogey for TV Tokyo. The anime aired from to  for 66 episodes (65 episodes in the international distribution). The manga and anime have been exported to several countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa; Mondo TV has licensed the latter under the names Cyborg Kurochan and Cat Stuff. An English dub aired on Animax Asia and the first 14 episodes of the dub were released on VCD. A large number of merchandise has been made based on the manga and anime, and two additional volumes, entitled Cyborg Kuro-chan: Extra Battle, were published. Reviews for the series note the simplistic and cartoonish art style, and a thin storyline which is mainly centered on gags and comedic violence.

Broadcast
The anime first premiered on TV Tokyo, with 66 episodes. Airing from October 2nd, 1999 to January 6th, 2001. A HD remaster of the same show was rebroadcast in 2010 on TV Aichi, and then the show aired again on the AT-X channel from 2016.

Studio bankruptcy
78 episodes were originally planned before Public & Basic and Studio Bogey declared legal bankruptcy. Most dubs of the series only dub the first 65 episodes, leaving out the final episode, which only exists in Japanese. The Japanese version of the episode is also left out of international distribution, due to the bankruptcy and legally declared shutdown of Public & Basic and Studio Bogey during its production, which left the series officially cancelled and the episode finished without legal permission. The episode was not broadcast on TV Tokyo, but only on local stations by mistake.

Since the episode's premiere, these issues have been sorted out and the episode has been included on Amazon Prime Video and in reruns. However, the episode cannot legally be licensed out for international distribution. The episode now contains a goodbye message, which translates to "Thank you for watching this anime for a long time. Let's hope we meet again someday."

To fill the remaining 12 (or 13 on stations that did not air the 66th episode) episode slots left by the bankruptcy, Japanese television networks filled them up with "Cyborg Kuro-chan Selection", a rebroadcast of the first episodes of the series.

The two companies relied on merchandise sales to keep themselves afloat. Their bankruptcies occurred as a result of the series' declining popularity and merchandise sales, while the two companies were still funding more merchandise, as if they believed low sales were a result of limited availability.

Cast

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International versions

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