AstroBoy

Anime: Astro Boy

Astro Boy " The Origin"

Astro Boy is the first Japanese television series that embodied the aesthetic that later became familiarized as anime. It is originated as a manga in 1952 by Osamu Tezuka, who is oftenreputed as "god of manga". After enjoying success abroad Astro Boy was remade in 1980 as Shin tetsuwan Atomu, known as Astro Boy in the United States and other Western countries, and again in 2003. In November 2007, he was named Japan's envoy for overseas safety. An American computer-animated 3-D film based on the original manga series by Tezuka will screening in theatres on October 23, 2009.



Astro Boy is a science fiction series set in a futuristic world wherein androids co-exist with humans. Its focus is on the adventures of the titular " Astro Boy" (sometimes called simply Astro) a powerful robot created by the head of Ministry of Science Dr. Tenma, to replaced his son Tobio, who died in a car accident. Dr. Tenma built Astro in Tobio's image and treated his as lovingly as he were the real Tobio, but soon realized the little android could not fill the void of his lost son, specially given that Astro could grow older or express human aesthetics (in one of panels,Astro is shown preferring the Mechanical shapes of cubes over the organic shape of flowers).

After some time Professor Ochanomizu, the new head of Ministry of Science, noticed Astro Boy performing circus and convinced Hamegg to turn Astro over to him. He then took Astro as his own and treated him gently and warmly, becoming his legal guardian. He soon realized that Astro was gifted and superior powers and skills, as well as ability to experience human emotions.

Astro then is shown fighting crime, evil and injustice. Most of his enemies were robot- hating humans, robots gone berserk, or alien invaders. Almost every story included a battle involving Astro and other robots. A DVD set of the 1960's version is set to be released for the conicide with the movie.

Astro was listed on Empire magazine's 50 Greatest Comic Characters list ranking forty third on the list. The 1960's anime was named the 86th best animated series by IGN, calling the first popular anime TV series.

The 1980's anime was extremely popular in Australia, Canada and most of Asia, with two different English dubs. The dub shown in Australia (& to a lesser extent in the USA) coordinated by Tezuka Prod. & NTV & produced in the USA & a dub produced in Canada solely for broadcast there.

While the 2003 anime did poorly in North America, having received poor distribution and was heavily edited, which included the removal of its orchestrated soundtrack and much of Astro's childlike innocence. It was better received in the UK on the BBC, where it ran in syndication for almost three years as well as other parts of the world such as Dubai based MBC 3.

Astro Boy is a 2009 computer-animated 3-D film based on the highly successful Japanese franchise of the same name by Osamu Tezuka. It is being produced by Imagi Animation Studios the animation production company of TMTN and the upcoming Gatchaman. The studio announced the project in September 2006. It will be directed by David Bowerrs and produced by Mary Garger with Pilar Flynn as associate producer. The film was originally to be directed by Colin Brady who directed the 2006 animated fil Everyone's Hero. It has been announced that Freddie Highmore will provide the voice for the characther of Astro Boy in the movie. The film features the voices of Freddie Highmore, Kristen Bell, Nathan Lane, Eugene Levy, Matt Lucas, Bill Nighy, Donald Sutherland and Nicolas Cage. A short trailer of the movie was shown in the North American Home Theather of Playstation Home from december 28 to January 8, 2009.