The “Then” Newer Astro Boy
Created by Osamu Tezuka in the 1960’s in manga form and anime soon after, it’s hard to think of a time period where Astro Boy wasn’t big and popular. Maybe it’s because of the feeling in this world where Astro Boy is known as a foundational kind in regards to anime. What about in the 1970’s were the original black and white series wasn’t going around on reruns anymore and wasn’t shown outside of the United States. That is where Tezuka and the earlier form of Tezuka productions was put into production in the early 70’s. After quite a few delays and errors, Astro Boy came out better and more beautiful than ever in 1980.At 52 episodes in length, or 51 if you watch the English version like I did where the first two episodes are merged together for no reason at all, this series is a very faithful adaptation of the original Astro Boy anime. Except this one has a fraction of the episodes the og series has. But the stories this one tells are told very faithfully to that adaptation with the latest at that time period animation and storytelling techniques. I had a lot of fun watching this one in English even with that older dub. I couldn’t stand the 2003 series because that one wouldn’t allow anyone to just enjoy the scenery or what the animation is doing because no one ever stops talking.
The General Concept of Astro Boy
With the first episode taking place in the not so far future of 2030, Astro Boy features the story of the famous Doctor Tenma’s creation named, of course, Astro Boy, after so many interesting and horrifying setbacks. The first one being while Dr. Tenma worked as the head of the Ministry of Science, his son , Tobio, passed away. So as your average father and/or mad scientist, Dr Tenma seeked to rebuild his son into what became the almost invincible Astro Boy. Of course one mishap after another led to Tenma and Astro running away and Dr. Tenma eventually disowned him so he ended up at the circus. That is until the new Minister of Science Dr. Ochanomizu adopts him.
What I am leaving out in this origin story, because I had to look this up, was the creation of a duplicate of Astro Boy named Atlas. Apparently Dr. Tenma was given the possibility of putting the Omega Factor by the science thief Skunk to make Astro Boy more human. So came the creation of Atlas, the recurring villain that shows up every once in a while to face Astro Boy in different kinds of scenarios. The interactions between the two are always so complicated and interesting that its a joy to see Atlas show up and see what his next scheme to take over humanity is. Then there is the convincing that Astro Boy has to do to not fight him somehow. I love their push and pull. Why was that first episode taken out because it would add so much intrigue.As a whole, Astro Boy 1980 is a very episodic sci-fi series that takes place in different locations from around the Earth to different areas in outer space. Sometimes aliens show up. Sometimes the threat of the week is much more political in nature like the first robot president occurring in another country because the constant push of robot rights is prevalent throughout the entire series. Astro Boy also goes to school and sometimes the drama is him in a classroom or outside of school on a field trip. At some point, Astro Boy gains a family that Dr. Ochanomizu builds for Astro Boy with the parents just being there and Uran playing some important roles as a tomboy.There are a lot of things that occur in this show to write down in a few paragraphs. Let’s look at some of them in more detail.
Astro Boy the Young Boy
As an entire bit of history regarding Astro Boy, I think we always as a society look at it as a footnote without engaging Astro Boy as the very interesting character that he is. Astro Boy is who you do and do not expect him to be. As in, he is a young boy that happens to be a robot. When Astro’s robot abilities of super strength and flight are taken away, which happens in an episode, Astro Boy is just a young boy who wants to fit in and dream like every other young boy. Maybe it is a piece of phenomenal work in mechanical knowledge and engineering for him to do that, but it’s the truth of the matter. He’s not aggressive, he wants peace. Well, except when faceless aliens attack Earth. That is when things change for him.
When given the difference of what makes him different from an average human boy, that is where Astro Boy becomes the super hero we know and love. This boy doesn’t always follow instructions because there are plenty of times where Astro Boy will break the rules and even anger the very kind Ochanomizu to follow his sense of justice. The point is that Astro Boy can be counted on to do the right thing even if no one else sees it that way. Does Astro Boy change over the course of the series? Yes but also no. He’s such an interesting and complex character who reacts to every situation he is thrown into in interesting ways whether they are what we expect or not. They are all true to who Astro Boy is. A kind boy who happens to be a hero.
Seeing Atlas and Astro Boy face off or just sides in some episodes shows the dual sided pieces of their nature. I mean, they are twins with one different factor after all. The Omega factor did allow Atlas to do so many things that Astro just can’t. For instance, building robots and designing a crystal spaceship that can fly throughout the cosmos. Astro Boy by comparison is, as mentioned, an almost normal boy and yet the two are almost always poised against each other. The direction of where Astro Boy could have gone and how he has stayed so humble in living his life as a person and not as a ruler. I really do like this boy so much.
Let’s Talk About Politics and Robot Rights
This is where I feel mostly positive but kind of conflicted about. For instance, robots in this world can take the place of people who society places as the unwanted or just the ideal. There are multiple episodes regarding robot rights like the south pole where humans hunted down robots that are trapped in a society like the Jim Crow south by putting masks over their faces to lynch robots. Or that episode where Astro Boy has been given a license to go to another nation in order to support the first robot president or else the hate group in that country will run that president’s name through mud and the robot rights movement would officially be either stopped or damaged then. So it looks very X-Men-like in that robots can represent people .
Here is the conflicting part that no one ever talks about, humans are the ones who build the robots to perform so many human tasks they can’t do. So clearly from that distinction, robots can not be like humans despite what the show is trying to do. It’s very strange, but not completely outlandish from how we look at AI these days with the fear of robots taking our jobs that’s been around for years, that hate groups would want to take on these robots who cannot lie and also cannot hurt human beings and just want to have a family to live on. It’s very strange how Astro Boy’s message is that robots can be equal to humans one day when it’s humans that can stop production of them, turn them off, or update robots whenever we want to. It’s not a 1 to 1 thing to any larger problem and I don’t think Tezuka ever thought about it that deeply.
The one episode that ruined what this show was trying to do in Astro Boy (1980) was the episode I was the episode about Astro Boy and young boys dreaming. That one was the one I mentioned early where Astro Boy had his powers taken away so that he could find something to dream about. Except, the message at the end of the day was as a robot, he didn’t have dreams and was built to support humans. How can you look at the ideas of this series holding any sort of water when that is one of the messages it wants to tell you. Even the people who know, love, and support Astro Boy can’t see him as a human being. It’s a one off episode sure, but it still really hurts. I think I agree with Atlas’ hate of humans at this point because of it.
Smaller characters and details that do matter
If there are characters that fill out this world, it’s so many side characters that are real people but are not there to fulfill a lot of episode plots. Ok, the school kids that come in and accept Astro or just disrespect him until they become friends with Astro are fun and important in some episodes, but there is a point where they just become people for Astro Boy to save. But the main point is that we know who these characters are generally and can see why Astro Boy would save them. Astro Boy’s mother and father, because Uran is very funny and important, feel very unimportant besides some people who scold Astro Boy at times, but I couldn’t see Astro Boy without their presence.
The World of Astro Boy is very interesting and full of so many sci-fi stories and settings that make the whole experience so compelling. It’s not just Astro Boy flying somewhere and saving the day, there are a lot of intricate details in each setting that tell you the team behind this series put a lot of thought into each location. This is a legitimate living and breathing world with very complicated opinions towards robots and science. Aliens are here too. There is just something so realistic about it despite it being fiction and from someone’s imagination. I’m not sure if I can say that much else about it.
Visuals and This is a Kid’s Show?
For the year it came out, Astro Boy 1980 is absolutely gorgeous. If anything, it holds up to this day. Maybe as much compared to Astro Boy 2003, but Tezuka Productions really put all their efforts into making Astro Boy’s second outing feeling spectacular and mind blowing. So much work from sound design to things feeling like they have real weight when Astro destroys or lifts something with relative ease compared to normal humans. The character designs are the wonderful Tezuka character designs I love and the settings are still the retro future designs played up to the highest level of activities. This was the new Astro Boy flagship that would spread throughout the world for a long, long time.
So even with my complicated feelings towards some of the themes Astro Boy was trying to convey, I really like this show. I sometimes forget that kid’s shows during that time period actually engaged with complicated sorts of ideas like these in somewhat nuanced (because some of it was outright stated) ways. Plus there is a lot of interesting sci fi story telling that I really love seeing and Astro Boy is a good role model for kids. This show really is something that is for the whole family because every single person in a family has a take away from it. So yeah, still a good recommendation. Just watch the original subbed version if you can.
