Atom: The Beginning
The manga is based on Osamu Tezuka's "Astro Boy" series and is initially set up as a prequel, depicting the events up until the birth of Astro Boy. However, as the story progresses, discrepancies with the main story of "Astro Boy" emerge, and it is later revealed to be a different world with a divergent history from that of "Astro Boy" after an incident in 1969. Plot. It is five years after a catastrophe of unknown cause occurred in Japan. The young genius duo from Nerima University, Umatarō Tenma and Hiroshi Ochanomizu, work together to develop  a new type of artificial intelligence called Bewußtsein, which has an "ego" or "mind". Equipped with it, they create an autonomous robot named A106 ("Atom" in Japanese wordplay), which has a will and a personality. However, their Laboratory 7 is chronically short of funds. In addition, it is difficult for the faculty to understand them. To earn funds, they participate in a Robot Wrestling tournament for the prize money. They win by exploiting the weaknesses of their opponents, and in the end, they shut down the previous champion, Mars, to win the tournament, and become the center of attention. However , things take an unexpected turn when they try to find out more about Dr. Lolo, the developer of Mars, out of curiosity. As a result, both Umatarō and Hiroshi end up being targeted by a mysterious organization, as they get involved in the secrets of the underworld, the murkiness of the government, and the darkness of the catastrophe five years ago, but this does not damper their spirits. At the request of the Ministry of Science and the university's upper management, they are asked to participate in the World Robot Battling (WRB) event in Australia with the successor to  A106, A107 (Yuran). However, as Yuran's enthusiasm for the competition spread, the other robots began to run amok. In the end, the WRB is cancelled, and when they return to Japan, Hiroshi's grandfather, who had been out of town, appeared before them. What he told them was an unbelievable story about a "boy-shaped robot from the future" (which Hiroshi had heard of before). Based on the information his grandfather had given him, Umatarō and Hiroshi headed for Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. There, they incompletely solve the mystery of the boy-shaped robot in question. Media . Manga. Kasahara's "Atom: The Beginning" began serialization in the "" magazine published by Hero's Inc. on December 1, 2014. Makoto Tezuka and Masami Yuki are responsible for the manga series' editorial supervision and concept design, respectively, with Tezuka Productions collaborating. The magazine ceased publication on October 30, 2020, and the series was transferred to "Comiplex" website, starting publication on November 27, 2020. has collected its chapters into individual "tankōbon" volumes. The first volume was released on June 5, 2015. As of January 5, 2022, sixteen volumes have been released. The manga is licensed in English by Titan Publishing Group , in partnership with StoneBot Comics. The first volume is set to be released, under their Titan Manga imprint on October 11, 2022. Anime. An anime television series adaptation was announced in June 2016. The anime series is directed by Katsuyuki Motohiro and Tatsuo Satō, with series composition by Junichi Fujisaku and animation produced by OLM, Inc., Production I.G and Signal.MD. Takahiro Yoshimatsu designed the characters and Noriyuki Asakura composed the series' soundtrack. Shinobu Tsuneki, Yoshihiro Ishimoto and Shinichi Miyazaki are responsible for mechanical design. The 12-episode series aired from April 15 to July 8, 2017, on NHK G.  It was streamed by Amazon on their Amazon Prime Video service. Sentai Filmworks has licensed the series for home video and exclusively streamed the series on Amazon's Anime Strike streaming service. The opening theme song, titled , is performed by After the Rain, while the ending theme song, titled , is performed by Yoshino Nanjō.