When looking at both the English and Japanese Cyborg 009 wiki. I noticed something on the Japanese wiki that they were in fact alternate or “original timeline” ages for the characters. To which I began to wonder where did these alternate or “original timeline” ages come from.
Then, I remembered seeing an old reblogged post on tumblr mentioning that the Cyborg ages being different in the 1979 anime and that said information comes from an old Animage magazine. So, I decided to do some digging on it to see whether or not this claim was indeed true. To which I’d discovered that old post was in fact correct.
It comes from the 1979 July Animage, which answers about 100 questions about the 70’s iteration of the Show. And it just so happens one of the children asked about how old the Cyborgs were.
(Note: This is a rough translation done by Google.)
Cyborg 009 Question 31
Q. What ages of the 9 cyborgs?
Akiko Kiyotani, Hyogo Prefecture
13 years old
A. Ivan's age is unknown. Jet is 22 years old.
Françoise is 17 years old. Heinrich is 28 years old and Geronimo is 31 years old. Chan Chanko is in his late 30s, and Great Britain is in his late 40s, that's all they've revealed. Pyunma is 21 years old, and Joe is 18 years old.
It’s pretty amusing to me. Honestly, I like the idea of 006 being in his late 30s and 007 being in his late 40s. Compared to the Hensei/2001 anime take of Cyborg 009, where they’re both in their 40s.
But still it’s interesting how the ages of the character are slightly different in the 2001 iteration. Jet 18 year old, Heinrich/Albert is 30 years old, Françoise is 19 years old, Geronimo/Junior is 27 years old. Chan/Chang is 42 years old, Great/GB is 45 years old, Pyunma is 22 years old and finally Joe who stay at his original age 18 years old.
Now, you’re probably wondering why bring this up? Well, one of my reason being is that the English wiki doesn’t have this little interesting piece of info on it. Ideally, I think it would be good to add these ages to the Cyborg 1979 anime wiki page. I will say though while the Japanese wiki does indeed put these ages as the og timeline; making it seem like it applies to both the manga and 1979 anime, but I would hesitate doing so.
The reason being I’m not entirely sure if these are indeed the “true ages” of the manga version of the characters. So, I think keeping the manga ages not listed or ambiguous for the Cyborg 009 English wiki is probably the best course of action I feel.
Anyway, that’s all I have to say really and I also provided a picture of the question sourced from my own copy of the 1979 July Animage. I also hope this was a little helpful overall with sharing some of the 1979 Cyborg 009 anime more lesser know info outside of Japan.
Hopefully, this info can be put on the Cyborg 009 1979 wiki for further reference to anyone else who’s curious about where these said alternate or “original timeline” ages come from.
