Derpopotamus

I've made it no secret that I LOOOOOOOOOVE Cyborg 009, and for one of those reasons is the character designs. Mostly because a lot of them are random and don't make a lot of sense. For example, you had the "Mythos Cyborg Arc", which brought us anthropomorphic furry characters! Like the sexy panther man, and also this hippo dude! This is Hippo Man (known as Nereus in the 2001 anime) In the original manga, he had powerful nostrils and stretchy arms... And that's about it. He get beaten pretty easily, and then Cyborg 007 posed as him a few chapters. In the anime, he's pointless comedy relief with no real abilities!

Since Hippo Man is a really out of place character, you rarely see him in Cyborg 009 material. Despite this, he somehow showed up as a cameo in the "Cyborg 009 Vs. Devilman" movie, as pictured here. In this part, the Mythos Cyborgs are mentioned by the "High Teen Numbers", who are fairly generic anime movie villains. Kind of weird that they would go out of their way to draw Hippo Man, considering how obscure and silly of a character is. They also gave him a cross-eyed "derp" expression for some reason. I get the feeling that the movie's artist just really wanted to draw a hippo, so they let him draw Hippo Man for this one scene. And yes, he is wearing a tutu.

I decided to put this pic up since you can't really find it online. Due to Hippo Man's low volume of appearances outside of the manga, it's hard to find any pictures of him. Still, I managed to snag this from the film. I thought since the battle with him does involve shapeshifting, and hippos are awesome, that it would be relevant to post it here. I do not own this character nor do I own the rights to anime. I'm just posting it here cuz I love hippos and I want to share 'em.