The North American anime distributor and retailer Right Stuf , Inc. announced on Tuesday that it has licensed the Space Adventure Cobra television anime series. Right Stuf and Nozomi Entertainment will release the series in two DVD sets starting in late 2013. The companies will also release the series digitally. Right Stuf 's release will mark the first time the 1982-1983 series will be released in North America.

Right Stuf is also taking questions for original creator Buichi Terasawa on the series' official website until February 15.

The 31-episode anime adapts Terasawa's 18-volume science-fiction manga series, which ran in Shueisha 's Weekly Shonen Jump from 1978 to 1984. The series tells the adventures of a space pirate and his female android partner. Osamu Dezaki ( The Rose of Versailles , Golgo 13 , Black Jack ) directed the series at Tokyo Movie Shinsha .

Terasawa's manga inspired the Space Adventure Cobra - The Movie in 1982, which Discotek Media released in North America last year. The manga has also inspired the 2008 Cobra The Animation: The Psychogun video anime project, the 2009 Cobra The Animation: Time Drive video anime project, and the Cobra The Animation television series, which aired in 2010. Crunchyroll streamed these newer anime projects outside of Japan.

A live-action film adaptation of the manga from Piranha 3D director Alexandre Aja is also planned, but has not yet been green-lit.