Astro Boy: Encyclopedia - Astro Boy

Astro Boy

Astro Boy is the American title for the Japanese animated series Tetsuwan Atomu (鉄腕アトム), which roughly translates to "Mighty Atom" (literally "Iron-arm Atom");or Atom boy first broadcast on Japanese television from 1963 to 1966.

Astro Boy is the first Japanese television series to display the aesthetic that later became known as anime. It originated as a manga comic series started in 1952 by Osamu Tezuka, the so-called "god-king of manga". After enjoying success abroad, Astro Boy was remade in the 1980s as Shin Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy in the US and other Western countries) and again in 2003. For a while, Astro Boy achieved a similar level of popularity in Japan as Disney's Mickey Mouse. Astro Boy presents some similarities with the Italian puppet Pinocchio [1].

The animated series was produced by Mushi Productions, a studio established and headed by Tezuka.

The original Tetsuwan Atomu manga stories are now also available in English, published by Dark Horse Comics in a translation by Frederik L. Schodt. They follow the television series in using "Astro Boy" instead of "Tetsuwan Atomu", as that is the name most familiar to English-speaking audiences. However the names of the other characters, such as Dr. Tenma and Professor Ochanomizu, are those of the original Japanese.

Chuang Yi plans to publish a more recent manga version of Astro Boy in Singapore.

The 2003 Japanese television series acknowledges the "Astro Boy" name. Although the character is still named "Atomu" ("Atom" in English), the series' onscreen title is Astro Robot Tetsuwan Atomu (with the latter part written in Japanese characters) and the scene in which the newly-activated robot is named has been written so it can support either character name. In the English-language version of the series, the character is of course once more called Astro Boy.

In the original story, Astro Boy was created in Takadanobaba on April 7, 2003. On the same day in the real world, a city in Japan (Niiza of Saitama prefecture) granted Astro Boy a special citizenship. This is in contrast to the hardship Astro Boy went through in the fiction to be a part of human society, including obtaining a citizenship.

In 2004, the character Astro Boy was inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame. The series of graphic albums was nominated for the Harvey Award for Best Presentation of Foreign Material in 2003.

Astro Boy - Manga Plot summary

Astro Boy is a science fiction series set in a future where androids co-exist with humans. Its focus is on the adventures of the titular "Astro Boy", a powerful robot created by the head of the Ministry of Science Dr. Tenma (天馬博士 Tenma Hakase) (Dr. Boyton in the first series English anime, Dr. Balfus in the second series) in order to replace his son Tobio (Astor Boynton III in the first series English anime, Toby in the remake of the first series English anime) who died in a car accident. Dr. Tenma built Astro (Atom, アトム Atomu in the original Japanese) in Tobio's image and treated him as lovingly as if he were the real Tobio, but soon came to the fact that the little android could not fill the void of his lost son, especially due to the fact that he wouldn't grow. In the original 1960 edition, Tenma rejected Astro and sold him to a cruel circus owner, Hamegg (also known as Cachatore), who abused the performers. In the 1980 edition, Astro naïvely signed himself away to the circus owner.

While languishing in Hamegg's circus, Professor Ochanomizu (お茶の水博士 Ochanomizu Hakase) (Dr. Packadermus J. Elefun in the first series, Prof. Peabody in the second, and Dr. O'Shay in the third), the new head of the Ministry of Science, noticed Astro Boy performing in the circus. He managed to make Hamegg turn Astro over to him. He brought Astro along and treated him gently and warmly, becoming his new fatherly figure. He soon realized Astro was gifted with superior powers and skills, as well as the ability to experience human emotions.

Soon enough, Astro Boy became an android super-hero with a strength equivalent to 100,000 horsepower (75 MW). He has the ability to fly through jets in his arms and legs, lift many times his own weight, magnify his hearing up to 1000 times, deploy machine guns set in his rear-end, and is equipped with an electro-heart that can define people's criminal intentions, and bright eye-lamps to assist his vision. In the more recent series Astro Boy was also given an arm cannon and lasers in his fingers.

Astro then fought crime, evil and injustice. Most of his enemies were robot-hating humans, robots gone berserk or alien invaders. Each story almost always included a big robot battle involving Astro as one of the fighters.

The series explored issues of racism, prejudice, true heroism, and loss.

Astro Boy - Trivia

• Astro's cry of "Let's rocket!" in the 2003 dub is also the morphing call yelled by the Space Rangers in Power Rangers in Space.

In the original black-and-white series, Astro's cry was "Let's go -- go -- go!!"

• In the opening of The Simpsons episode "Tis the Fifteenth Season" all the members of the family are dressed up as Japanese superheros. Bart is dressed up similar to Astroboy, wearing red boots and slicked back black hair
• American Idol 4 finalist Constantine Maroulis voices a Mechanic in an episode.
• In 2004 Sega released Astro Boy: Omega Factor for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, an earlier version of which had been released in Japan about six months previously. The U.S. version received great reviews [2], as had the earlier Japanese release, though the American version incorporates a number of changes and improvements. Interestingly, a number of other characters created by Osamu Tezuka have cameo appearances in the game, including Ambassador Magma, Amazing 3, Black Jack, Big X, Rainbow Parakeet, Kimba the White Lion, and Unico.
• A PS2 version of Astro Boy was also released by Sonic Team and published by Sega which brings the Astro Boy universe to the third dimension. Unfortunately the PS2 version received a poor two star rating from GameSpy [3] compared to 4.5 stars [4] for the GameBoy Advance game.
• Because according to the story Astro Boy was born in Takadanobaba on April 7, 2003, in commemoration, (starting in 2003) the JR platform in Takadanobaba has used the theme music from the TV series to signal that a train is about to leave.
• Naoki Urasawa's manga Pluto is a retelling of a story arc in Tetsuwan Atomu called "The World's Strongest Robot."
• Hamegg (Cacciatore in the American version) appears as a villain in the Kimba the White Lion anime.
• Stanley Kubrick who saw Astro Boy asked the creator, Osamu Tezuka, to be a production designer on 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• In 1977, Toei Animation made was given permission by Tezuka to make an anime that was inspired by Astro Boy. It was called Jetter Mars, and in the end turned out to be an almost carbon copy with the scripts just having the characters names changed.

Astro Boy - The Astroboy March 1963 version

There you go, Astroboy, on your flight into space.

Rocket hi----gh, through the sk----y

For adventures soon you will face.

Astroboy bombs away,

On your mission today,

Here's the count----down,

And the blast----off,

Everything is go, Astroboy!

Astroboy, as you fly,

Strange new worlds you will spy,

Atom ce----lled, jet pro----pel----led

Fighting monsters high in the sky,

Astroboy, there you go, will you find friend or foe,

Cosmic ran----ger, laugh at dan----ger, everything is go, Astroboy!

Crowds will cheer you, you're a he----ro, as you go, go, go, Astroboy!

Astro Boy - Astro Boy 80's Series Opening Theme English Version

Soaring high in the sky,

He may be small but only in size.

AstroBoy, AstroBoy,

He is brave and gentle and wise!

Stronger Than all the rest,

this mighty robot will pass the test,

Oh villans fear him, so we cheer him,

The amazing AstroBoy!

When you need someone strong,

Our robot friend will never be long.

AstroBoy, AstroBoy,

He will try to right any wrong!

When there's danger near by,

No matter who, what, where, when or why.

He'll defend us, he'll befriend us,

The amazing AstroBoy!

Astro Boy - Astro Boy 80's Series Closing Theme English Version

Come and join us in a melody,

A song of happiness for you and me.

Sing of joy, sing about a boy,

Little hero, AstroBoy!

Come and join us in a fantasy,

We can all be heros, you and me.

Sing of joy, sing about a boy,

Little hero, AstroBoy!

Lighting up the way for all,

For soon he will fight for right,

Strong as steel and with a heart of gold.

Sing of glory,

Pour your heart our,

Your voices will be heard,

And it's raining out with love for all.

Astro Boy - Astro Boy Anime: 60's 80's and 2003

Astro Boy - 1963 Series

This version originally premiered on Fuji TV, on New Year's Day 1963, but was eventually moved to the NHK network. It was the first anime to be broadcast outside Japan. It lasted for three seasons, with a total of 193 episodes. At its height it was watched by 40% of the Japanese population that had access to a tv. In 1964 there was a feature-length animated movie called Hero of Space released in Japan.

The English version was called Astro Boy instead of Mighty Atom due to the existance of a comic book character with a similar name. Of the 193 episodes created in the series 104 were adapted into the English version by Fred Ladd. The manga was not translated into English, although Golden Key comics published an unauthorized verson in the states.

• Billie Lou Watt — Astro Boy/Astro Girl/Mother
• Ray Owens — Dr. Elefun/Dr. Boynton
• Gilbert Mack — Mr. Pompus/Father

Astro Boy - 1983 Series

This series focused more on Astros robotic skills and also had a somewhat darker storyline. While it still had its fun moments, at times the series could be quite sombre and sad. It wasn't uncommon for robots or human characters that featured in episodes to suffer for their actions or the misdeeds of others. During the course of the series, Astro gained a mother, a father and a sister named Uran. The scripts of this version were largely written by Osamu Tezuka, although others were involved with the script. The story introduced Astro's evil twin Atlas, who was created from stolen blue prints by Count Walpurgis (Walper Guiss in the American version) who was a European arms manufacturer.

The series ran for 52 episodes and did not have a proper series ending. The US dub stayed quite true to the orignal japanese version yet had a shuffled order of episodes thanks to the way american syndication worked at the time. The US dub was called The New Adventures of Astro Boy, like before when the series came out there was no translation of the manga but an unauthorized comic book version was released. There are two different English language dubs, one from Canada (the version shown in the US) and the other from Australia.

The 1983 series has since been released on DVD thanks to Madman Entertainment and Anchor Bay. Though there are differences between the Madman and Anchor Bay sets. Madman's set having more deleted scenes and the first 2 episodes unedited in Japanese. However the US Anchor Bay set has an edited Japanese track to go with the US edited episodes and has put in some scenes originally not in the US dub.

Astro Boy - 2003 series

In 2003 a new Astro Boy anime series was created to celebrate the birth date of Astro Boy. Under the original english name (instead of Tetsuwan Atom), it kept the same visual style as the original Astro Boy manga and anime, but was revisioned and modernized with more lush, high-quality, near-theatrical animation and visuals. It combined the playfulness of the early anime with the darker, more serious and dramatic Science Fiction themes of the manga and the 80's anime. The anime broadcasted in Japan (on the same date as Astro's birth in the manga, April 7, 2003) with lots of fanfare. Directed by Kazuya Konaka and written by Chiaki J. Konaka.

The show was eventually picked up by Sony Pictures Entertainment. However, Kids WB picked up the broadcasting rights. Fans balked at the Dub, as the orignal score was changed and was given horrible scheduling. It was bounced back and forth between Kids WB and Cartoon Network until it was eventually cancelled. The entire series is currently available on DVD in one single boxset. However the US set is not fully complete, with one episode in the set being omitted "Eternal Boy" and repaced with a clip show episode. This is because the episode features a character very much akin to Peter Pan, which if had been included, may have caused copyright issues with Disney.

A trailer from 2001 made for this series when it was in development presented several major differences from the final series. With different designs for characters such as Atlas. With the characters speaking in english (with voices completely different to the voices that would eventually end up in the US dub)and animation not found in the final series. Which presents an interesting view of what originally was planned for this series.

• Makoto Tsumura — Atom
• Shinya Owada — Nagamiya Tenma
• Akiko Kawase — Yuko
• Banjo Ginga — Inspector Tawashi
• Hisashi Kastuta — Professor Ochanomizu
• Kazuki Yao — Skunk
• Miki Maruyama — Uranium
• Nobuyuki Hiyama — Atlas
• Miyoko Shoji — Helen
• Motoko Kumai — Tamao
• Naoki Tastuta — Robita
• Rie Kugimiya — Nyanko
• Susumu Chiba — Shibugaki
• Yuu Urata — Official/Clerk
• Yuko Sato — Ken'ichi

• Candi Milo — Astro/Kennedy
• Wally Wingert — Dr. O'Shay/Skunk/Blue Knight/Wally Kisagari/Katari/Harley/Kato
• Bill Farmer — Detective Tawashi
• Susan Blu — Zoran
• Dorian Harewood — Dr. Tenma
• Maile Flanagan — Matthew
• Greg Cipes — Atlas
• Jennifer Darling — Nora
• Sandy Martin — Abercrombie
• Lara Jill Miller — Alejo
• Faith Salie — Yuko
• Tabitha St. Germain — Mimi

Astro Boy - Other

In 1977 there was an anime called Jet Mars (in the English version Jetter Mars) done by Toei Animation under commission by Osamu Tezuka. It was originally meant to be loosely based on Astro Boy, but in the end turned out to be a carbon copy, with only the characters names changed. This series lasted only 27 episodes.

Tezuka met Walt Disney at the 1964 World's Fair, at which time Disney said he hoped to "make something just like" Tezuka's Astro Boy. A feature film was announced in 1999 by Columbia Pictures and Jim Henson production. However, nothing has come of this announcement since then. There were plans for a Japanese-Canadain IMAX coproduction, but it was shelved in 2000 while it was early in production.

There is a reported U.S. live-action feature being planned for release in 2006 or 2007. There is an animated feature that according to IMDB is in production currently, it is a Japan/US coproduction.

Astro Boy - Facts

Astro Boy has its own sushi resteraunt in Gushikawa,Okinawa,Japan called Atom boy

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Astro Boy", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki