Eight Man

Detective Hachiro Azuma is murdered by a gang criminals and his body is retrieved by Chief Tanaka (in the manga), or Dr. Tani (in the anime). In Tani's laboratory, he transfers Azuma's mind into an android body. Azuma is reborn as the armour-skinned android 8 Man, and is able to dash at impossible speeds as well as shape-shift into other people.

He typically takes on the form of his former body, and keeps the fact that he is a robot secret from everyone, even his secretary Sachiko and his assistant Ichiro. To rejuvenate his powers, he smokes "power" cigarettes that he carries in a case on his belt.

8 Man was ranked ninth in the Mania Entertainment's '10 Most Iconic Anime Heroes'. The author of the ranking, Thomas Zoth, commented, "Before Cyborg 009, The Six Million Dollar Man, and RoboCop, there was 8 Man: The first cyborg manga and anime hero. Building on Astro Boy, 8 Man helped to shape the trajectory of robot and cyborg heroes for the next decade." (Technically 8 Man was predated by DC Comics' "Robotman", who first appeared in "Star Spangled Comics" #7 (April 1942).)

The 8 Man franchise was revived in the early 1990s with a live-action film, video game, and OVA series.

In 1991, SNK released a video game edition of Eight Man for the Neo Geo arcade and home video game system (both versions are identical), where the player took the role of 8 Man and his Robo-comrade 9 Man in a fight against an invading evil robot army. The game was released internationally. While the game stayed true to the concept of a crime-fighting super-robot, it was widely criticized for being tedious and relying too much on the gimmick of its speed-running effect.