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FRANCOIS EPIN ART & DESIGN CONSULTING

132 - Space Adventure Cobra - Cobra (スペースコブラ) Armanoid Hand-painte…
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Estimate €150 - €300
Sale commission
Description
Space Adventure Cobra - Cobra (スペースコブラ) Armanoid Hand-painted celluloid sheet used in the production of the anime Space Adventure Cobra, based on the work of Buichi Terasawa (寺沢 武一). Executed in ink and gouache. Warped celluloid. Produced by TMS Entertainment 1982–1983, Japan H26 L23 cm Armanoid — Lady Armaroid in the original Japanese version — is Cobra’s legendary lifelong partner: a female-appearing android, built using technology derived from an ancient, lost Martian civilisation. Her real name is Esmeralda — she was once a woman, whose consciousness and identity have survived within a mechanical body. She is no ordinary robot: she is a person whose flesh has given way to a metallic alloy, a human being whose body has become armour. It is precisely this that makes Armanoid one of the most unique figures in the ‘Knights, Armour and Samurai’ themed collection — and its most unexpected counterpoint. All the other pieces in the exhibition depict beings who wear armour separate from their bodies: the Knights of the Zodiac don it through spiritual investiture, Kenshin rejects it by carrying a blunt blade, Guts forges his own through pain. In these cases, the armour is always separable from the body — it can be removed, lost or stripped away. Armanoïde does not have this option. Her armour is her body — not by original nature, but through a transformation, whether endured or consented to, of a being who was once human. In his case, there is an irreversible loss that the other armours in the series do not experience: that of the flesh-and-blood body she once was. What the Knights of the Zodiac activate by burning their cosmos, Armanoïde has already paid for once and for all — her cosmos, her flesh, her humanity are now locked away in an alloy that will not age, will not bleed, but will never be a living body either. Buichi Terasawa plays on this ambiguity throughout the series: Armanoïde is never treated as a machine. She is loyal, she protects Cobra, she is capable of self-sacrifice — and her metal armour is depicted with the curves and expressiveness of a woman’s body, not as mere equipment. The armour is both absolute protection and a state of perpetual mourning — this body that can no longer be wounded is also one that can no longer truly feel. The reference to ‘warped celluloid’ — the deformation of acetate after forty years — is a documentary irony here: the medium that ages and warps over time to represent a character whose mechanical body, however, does not age.
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About the sale Knights, Armour and Samurai + Animation Art Selection
Auction location
Auction time 06/28/2026 at 3:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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