Astro Boy

***Astro Boy***, known in Japan by its original name ***Mighty Atom*** (Japanese: 鉄腕アトム, Hepburn: *Tetsuwan Atomu*), is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka. It was serialized in Kobunsha's *Shōnen* from 1952 to 1968. The 112 chapters were collected into 23 *tankōbon* volumes by Akita Shoten. English volumes were not available until 2002, when the manga was licensed by Dark Horse. The story follows Astro Boy, an android young boy with human emotions who is created by Umataro Tenma after the death of his son Tobio. Eventually, Astro is sold to a robot circus run by Hamegg, but is saved from his servitude by Professor Ochanomizu. Astro becomes a surrogate son to Ochanomizu who creates a robotic family for Astro and helps him to live a normal life like an average human boy, while accompanying him on adventures.

*Astro Boy* has been adapted into three anime series produced respectively by Mushi Production and Tezuka Productions, with a fourth in development. The manga was originally produced for TV as *Astro Boy*, the first popular animated Japanese television series that embodied the aesthetic that later became familiar worldwide as *anime*. After enjoying success abroad, *Astro Boy* was remade in the 1980s as *New Mighty Atom*, known as *New Astroboy* in other countries, and again in 2003. A Japanese/American traditional-animated film based on the original manga series by Tezuka was released on October 23, 1993. In November 2007, he was named Japan's envoy for overseas safety. In March 2015, a trailer was released announcing a new animated series. The success of the manga and anime series led it to becoming a major media franchise consisting of films including a major motion picture, a number of soundtracks and a library of Video Games. The series was also among the first to embrace mass merchandise including action figures, collectible figurines, food products, clothing, stamps and trading cards. By 2004, the franchise had generated $3 billion in merchandise sales.

Astro Boy is one of the most successful manga and anime franchises in the world. The combined 23 tankōbon volumes have sold over 100 million copies worldwide, making it the tenth-best-selling manga series of all time. The 1963 anime series became a hit on television in Japan and the United States. *Astro Boy* has been praised for its importance in developing the anime and manga industry. It has been featured on numerous greatest anime of all time lists and has partially inspired other authors in the creation of influential manga.

## Plot

*Astro Boy* is a science fiction series set in a futuristic world where robots co-exist with humans. Its focus is on the adventures of the titular "Astro Boy" (sometimes called simply "Astro"): a powerful android created by the head of the Ministry of Science, Doctor Tenma (aka Dr. Astor Boynton II in the 1960s English dub; Dr. Boynton in the 1980s English dub). Dr. Tenma created Astro to replace his son Tobio ('Astor' in the 1960s English dub; 'Toby' in the 1980s English dub and the 1993 film), who died in a self-driving car accident (first ran away, then died in the accident in the 2003 anime). Dr. Tenma built and adopted Astro in Tobio's memory and treated Astro as lovingly as if he was the real Tobio. However, Dr. Tenma soon realized that the little android could not fill the void of his lost son, especially given that Astro could not grow older or express human aesthetics (in one set of panels in the manga, Astro is shown preferring the mechanical shapes of cubes over the organic shapes of flowers). In the original 1960 edition, Tenma rejected Astro and sold him to a cruel circus owner, Hamegg (the Great Cacciatore in the '60 English dub). In the 1980 edition, Hamegg kidnapped Astro while Tenma was trying to find him. In the 1993 film, Tenma rejected Astro part-time because he could not stop thinking about his original son, but later during the film, Tenma realized that Astro made credit to replace Tobio; as a result, Tenma decided that he would readopt Astro. None these events about Astro being rejected (completely or temporarily) or kidnapped in both the 1960 & 1980 cartoons as well as in the 1993 film happened in the 2003 cartoon as Astro's birth was given by Professor Ochanomizu (Dr. Elefun in the 1960 & 1980 cartoons as well as in the 1993 film; Dr. O'Shay in the 2003 cartoon).

After some time, Professor Ochanomizu, the new head of the Ministry of Science (co-head of the Ministry of Science in the 1993 film), notices Astro Boy performing in the circus and convinces Hamegg to turn Astro over to him. (In a retcon the story becomes far more violent and complicated). He then takes Astro in as his own and treats him gently and warmly, becoming his legal guardian. He soon realizes that Astro has superior powers and skills, as well as the ability to experience human emotions.

Astro then is shown fighting crime, evil, and injustice using his seven powers: 100K horsepower strength, jet flight, high intensity lights in his eyes, adjustable hearing, instant language translation, a retractable machine gun in his hips, and a high IQ capable of determining if a person is good or evil. Most of his enemies are robot-hating humans, robots gone berserk, or alien invaders. Almost every story includes a battle involving Astro and other robots. In one manga episode, Astro takes on the US Air Force, and stops it from bombing some innocent Vietnamese villagers (this was a time-travel episode, in which Astro went back from the 21st century to 1969).

## Production

The *Astro Boy* series consists of several storylines. Atom (known as Astro Boy or just Astro in English) originally appeared as a supporting character in the Tezuka comic *Atom Taishi* (*Ambassador Atom*, sometimes referred to as *Captain Atom*), which appeared in *Shonen*, a monthly magazine for boys, in April 1951. Tezuka then created a comic series in which Astro was the main character. According to Schodt, Tezuka created Astro to be a "21st-century reverse-Pinocchio, a nearly perfect robot who strove to become more human and emotive and to serve as an interface between man and machine." As Tezuka's art style advanced, Astro Boy "became more modern and cute" to appeal to his audience of boys in elementary school. Schodt added that the page layouts used in *Astro Boy* episodes "became more creative." When designing supporting characters, Tezuka sometimes created characters that were homages to Walt Disney, Max Fleischer, and other American animators. In several of the *Astro Boy* stories, the first few pages were in color. Tezuka had a "Star System" of characters where characters from his other works played various roles in *Astro Boy*. Similarly, several characters in *Astro Boy* appear in his other works. Tezuka developed "a type of dialog with his readers" since he developed so many stories during his lifetime. Tezuka also had a habit of introducing nonsensical characters at random moments in order to lighten a scene which was becoming too serious; he sometimes felt trapped by the need to satisfy his young male audience's desire to see battling robots.

*Astro Boy* was described by Schodt as an "analog," a world where man and advanced technology coexist. As a result, the plots of the *Astro Boy* stories often involve issues that stem from this idea. When *Astro Boy* was created in the 1950s and 1960s, Japan did not have the reputation for science and technology that it had gained by 2002. This made the "analog" nature of *Astro Boy* unique.

The novels were originally published by Akita Shoten; 23 volumes of paper backs were printed. The stories do not appear in order by publication date, but in the order that Tezuka and the collection editors considered most appropriate. The collection begins with *The Birth of Astro Boy*, an episode that Tezuka wrote in 1975 to make the collection of stories easier to understand. The first *Astro Boy* story ever written, first published in April 1951, is in Volume 15. In addition, Tezuka often re-drew chapters that he had created earlier. Schodt explains that this is the reason some may appear "more modern" than others. For many of his older stories, Tezuka added introductory pages where he himself was portrayed as the narrator. The color pages were reprinted in black and white for the inexpensive paperback versions.

### English-language version

The English-language version of *Astro Boy* is an adaptation of the Akita Shoten published works by Osamu Tezuka. The artwork was flipped from the original Japanese version so the books could be read from left to right. Frederik L. Schodt wrote the English-language version of *Astro Boy* and for most of the characters, he used the original Japanese names. Schodt believed that it was necessary to retain the Japanese names wherever possible, as the story was set in Japan. Schodt translated the nickname "Higeoyaji" to "Mr. Mustachio," and decided to use Astro Boy's English name. He explained that "Astro" is close to the Japanese name, "Atom", an English word. In addition, Schodt believed that using "Atom" in an American edition of the story would be "going too much against the history". Occasionally, names of Japanese characters had double meanings that were impossible to convey in the English-language translation. Schodt decided that keeping the sound of the names was important, especially when the names were famous. In those cases, Schodt tried to use the double meaning elsewhere in the translation. When dealing with minor foreign characters with humorous-sounding names, Schodt used equivalent English puns wherever it was possible.

The editors of the English-language *Astro Boy* book did not remove content that could be perceived to be racially insensitive. They explained that in some cases people may be portrayed differently from how they actually were in 2002 (the year of publication of the English version). The editors said that some readers may feel that the portrayals contribute to racial discrimination and, while that was not Tezuka's intent, the issue needed to be explained as some readers may feel offended or insulted by the depictions. They felt that it would be inappropriate to revise the works, because Tezuka had died and there was no way to reverse what he created, and revising his works would violate his right as a creator. They also expressed the belief that editing or stopping publication of the work would "do little" to end racial and ethnic discrimination throughout the world.

## Characters

* Mighty Atom / Astro Boy
* Dr. Umatarō Tenma / Dr. Boynton / Dr. Balthus, Astro's father and creator.
* Professor Ochanomizu / Doctor Ochanomizu / Dr. Packidermus J. Elefun, head of the Ministry of Science
* Astro's parents, created by Prof. Ochanomizu in order to make Astro more human-like
* Uran / Astro Girl / Zoran, Astro's younger sister
* Cobalt / Jetto, Astro's younger brother (appears as older brother in the 1960s anime)
* Chi-Tan / Ti-Tan, Astro's baby brother
* Higeoyaji / Mustachio / Shunsaku Ban / Mr. Percival Pompous / Daddy Walrus / Albert Duncan / Wally Kisaragi, Astro's schoolteacher and/or neighbor in the original manga and color 1980 TV series; a private detective and surrogate uncle for Astro in the 1960s TV series
* Shibugaki and Tamao / Dinny and Specs, two of Astro's friends
* Chief Nakamura / Chief McLaw
* Inspector Tawashi / Inspector Gumshoe
* Tobio Tenma / Astor Boynton III/ Toby Boynton / Toby Tenma, the little boy Astro was modeled after, who dies in the first episode
* Atlas, Another robot, Astro's nemesis.
* Cora
* Trashcan
* Orrin
* Sparx
* Robotsky
* Mike the Fridge
* Mr. Squirt
* Mr. Squeegee
* Stone
* Peacekeeper

## Filmography

### Television

* *Astro Boy* (1963)
* *New Astro Boy* (1980)
* *Astro Boy and Cora* (1994)
* *Astro Boy* (2003)
* *Little Astro Boy* (2014)
* *Astro: The Beginning* (2017)
* *Go, Astro Boy, Go!* (2019)
* *Astro Boy Reboot* (2021)

### Films

* *Astro Boy: The Brave in Space* (1964)
* *Astro Boy: Battle Among the Stars* (1965)
* *Astro Boy* (1993)
* *Astro Boy: Ascension* (2009)
* *Pluto: An Astro Boy Movie* (TBA)
* *Astro Boy* (TBA)