Rating: **
Review Date: 7/26/09
Divided into twelve episodes.
What starts out as an absurd premise quickly settles down into more palatable action. Cold War animosities flare between two geo-political regions known as Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc. Western Bloc intelligence employs a group of cybernetic female agents codenamed "009" who are used as spies and assassins to keep the Eastern Bloc in check. Their top agent is Mylene Hoffman, also known as 009-1, a cool, smart, beautiful, and level-headed woman with supreme combat expertise. She also has a pair of 9mm machine guns built into her sizeable chest. Apart from that ridiculous fact, the series is a simple and straight forward action and espionage show, and the best episodes pit Mylene against an equally talented adversary from the Eastern Bloc. Much like the James Bond films, Mylene's strength of character is reflected in the quality and sophistication of her enemies. The animation is of average quality, but the character design is poor. While this may be an accurate adaptation of the manga, it's simply not attractive. The voice acting is quite good, and Mylene's cold and calculated delivery (provided by Yumiko Shaku) delightfully validates her bad-ass personality. The music score is also very good and quite possibly the best aspect of the series. Overall, "009-1" is fun action fluff, but don't expect anything more from it.