Terasawa devised it as a mix of Spaghetti Western and samurai stories, and aspects of films, varying from James Bond to Disney.

Publications for manga, anime and other media have compared the series to Star Wars and Barbarella, and the main character's attitude to James Bond.

One Sunday morning, his robotic servant Ben suggests that he go to the Trip Movie Corporation—a company that enables its customers to experience a dream as though it were a reality.

Hunted by the Pirate Guild for meddling in their criminal enterprises and tired of life on the run, Cobra surgically altered his face and had his memories erased.

[6] For Cobra, he also drew inspiration from the French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo and his "phlegmatic style", specifically from his characters on Breathless (1960) and That Man from Rio (1964).

For his storytelling, panel layout, and narrative pacing in general, he draws influence from manga artist Osamu Tezuka, who mentored him.

[27] Space Adventure Cobra: The Psychogun,[Jp 7] a fully colored "computer graphics" manga, was serialized in Super Jump in 1995.

[27] A "computer graphics" sequel called Space Adventure Cobra: Magic Doll[Jp 8] was serialized in Super Jump from 2000 to 2002.

[36] Tokyo Movie Shinsha adapted the manga into a film titled Space Adventure Cobra, which was released on July 23, 1982, in Japan.

[37] It was directed by Osamu Dezaki, with screenplay by Terasawa and Haruya Yamazaki, and retold the Cobra involvement with the Royal Sisters, and his fight against Crystal Bowie.

The lyrics for "Cobra" and "Secret Desire"[Jp 17], the opening and the ending themes respectively, were written by Kayoko Fuyumori and composed by Yuji Ohno; both were sung by Yoko Maeno.

[70][71] Cobra Song Collection, which encompassed music from the soundtracks of the film, two OVAs and two anime series was released on March 31, 2010 by Nippon Columbia.

[74][75] Popy and Bandai included Cobra's ground vehicle, the Psychoroid, in the Japanese Machine Robo toyline, where it gained the ability to transform into a robot.

Japan later exported this idea to the United States as part of the Super Gobots toyline under the name "Psycho", designed by Murakami Katsushi.

[76] In Japan, action figures,[77] T-shirts,[78] kewpie dolls,[79] Cobra's Psychogun and Crystal Bowie's claw replicas,[80][81] stamps,[82] and limited-edition whiskey bottles were sold as merchandise for the series.

She said the main character took "after James Bond, albeit somewhat on the silly side, and the costumes and bizarre worlds are but a shade shy of plagiarizing Barbarella".

She was impressed that the series "is surprisingly devoid of the sexual innuendo and exploitation that anime fans have come to associate with decorative female characters"; it avoids the stereotypical, beautiful women, and instead creates its own "extreme" world.

[89] Writing for Anime News Network (ANN), Jason Thompson described Cobra as "a significant piece of manga history".

Thompson deemed Cobra as a parody of both Western action heroes and Star Wars and 1970s shōjo science fiction and its concept of beauty".

[90] Pedro Cortes from Japanator affirmed, "Space Adventure Cobra is interesting in that it takes a shard of an idea from a classic and then spins it out into its own epic."

"[91] ANN's Theron Martin praised its "surprisingly solid" art "for a series of its era" and affirmed, "it does stand up well as high-spirited, fun-loving action fare with occasional darker overtones.

"[92] Chris Beveridge of The Fandom Post said, "It's simple but full of adventure, interesting characters and locations and a sense of fun that definitely makes it work in a very good way" and has "a solid visual design.

"[93] Washington, in a review for Otaku USA, commended it for being "entertaining overall" and having "an overall fun vibe" because of its "smooth" art; he, however, criticized what he called "serious misogynistic tendencies.

[15][100] Approximately 50 million copies of Cobra have been sold, making it one of Weekly Shōnen Jump's best-selling manga series of all time.

[90] Le Monde's Frédéric Potet said it "marked a whole generation of young viewers",[7] and Joel Metreau of 20 minutes asserted it gained a cult following.

According to French scholar Marie Pruvost-Delaspre, its humorous style and sexual innuendos influenced manga City Hunter (1985), and Shinichirō Watanabe's anime Cowboy Bebop (1998) and Space Dandy (2014) owe their nostalgic appearance and the ironic tone, respectively, to Cobra.

[102] Cobra's "provoking look", ironic style and capacity of changing from a little smile to a serious face also inspired video game designer Hideki Kamiya to create the character of Dante from the Devil May Cry series.

[110] In 2011, Aja wrote a script with Gregory Levasseur, and production was held by Aton Soumache and Dimitri Rassom under Onyx Films and Studio 37 with a budget of more than $100 million.

[115] Working with the Orange Studio and a group of twenty concept artists, Aja was able "to develop an absolutely huge universe in visual research".

[115][116] In June 2017, he revealed the script was ready, but commented that another drawback is the big budget required for the film, which finds no funders in the US because the franchise is relatively unknown there.