Astroboy vs. Apartheid

[rongwrongtnk]

This may have been just a rumour or just flat-out false, but a while ago I was in a forensics roundtable discussing the oppressive, unfair racially segregative South African system of Apartheid, and it's effects on censorship. Someone piped up that Astroboy was on the hit list of banned material in SA. I'd never heard this before, and since then I haven't been able to find any information stating to the same effect or to the contrary, but in view of the Apartheid system I can see why it makes sense.

I can easily imagine why the Apartheid supporters would want to keep a series like Astroboy out of the eyes of kids of the times because egalitarian values Astro promotes, and also because the series has very clear allegories to the follies and vices of racial discrimination. But I was wondering if it ever was, in fact, banned, censored or even somehow reworked in SA during Apartheid. So, is anyone here able to confirm or deny this?

[fafner]

I have no idea, but here is a link to start a search in case you don't know it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid
I have already had a quick look but didn't find anything.

[Atoman]

Hi everyone,

I don't know about South African censorship of Astro, but I wouldn't be suprised. But as we speak there are countries today that censor or ban Astro and other Tezuka anime and manga. Especially countries who still have slavery or child labor or who's women don't have equal rights. I can see these contries being offended by Astro, being a liberated child or Princess Sapphire Knight, being a liberated woman. I won't mention the countries, because I don't want to open a can of worms, but there are probably a lot of them.

Evan in my own county(the U.S.) I think Astro is somewhat censored or banned, because we're at war and Astro's message of peace and love, and all that hippie stuff is probably hated by my country's government and the companies that support them. <_<
:angry: FASCISTS

Ohh well, at least we can talk here and watch our video's and dvds safely.

[DrFrag]

The US certainly went out of their way to remove all Japanese cultural reference from the 80s series.

[Atoman]

Same with the 60's series, which made you believe Astro was an American living in New York, plus the editing in all three versions, lame <_< . That's why I buy the Japanese versions. I get to see Astro(Atomu) the way he was meant to be seen, with no American tampering.

[dannavy85]

Evan in my own county(the U.S.) I think Astro is somewhat censored or banned, because we're at war and Astro's message of peace and love, and all that hippie stuff is probably hated by my country's government and the companies that support them.
FASCISTS

Well he's certainly hated by the wild eyed fanatics who strap jacket bombs to kids in Israel and send them off to murder people on passenger buses and in youth clubs or those who spend their days bombing crowds of Iraqis who they say are traitors to the faith. So who's the real FASCISTS in this world?

You forget that at times Astro has used violence to stop violence, not all his ways were "Hippie stuff". Even Tezuka knew that some times waving flowers and making flowery speeches don't work against real dangerous tyrants, some times do call for balling up your fist and beating the snot out of a few people.

And while we're at it about corperations and companies who support governments, we could look back to all the rich Japanese businessmen who financed Japan's brutality in Asia before World War II.

[fafner]

Originally posted by dannavy85@Feb 25 2005, 04:13 PM
Well he's certainly hated by the wild eyed fanatics who strap jacket bombs to kids in Israel and send them off to murder people on passenger buses and in youth clubs or those who spend their days bombing crowds of Iraqis who they say are traitors to the faith. So who's the real FASCISTS in this world?

All of them.
The ones who send fanatics blowing themselves in buses.
The ones who destroy the house of those fanatics' families regardless of their implication in terrorism.
The ones who kill their neighbours for being "traitor to the faith".
The ones who bomb another country and consider their detractors as traitors whatever their arguments.

[dannavy85]

The ones who bomb another country and consider their detractors as traitors whatever their arguments.


Better to liberate a people than to leave them enslaved to a tyrant with the help of the UN, Europeans and Presidents like Bill Clinton. Food for Oil placed a lot of blood money in the pockets of European businessmen....French Presidents and German cabinet members. I didn't see the European "peaceniks" Marching in Afghanistan to protest the Taliban shooting women in the head at a soccer stadium.

I didn't see these "peaceniks" taking out the taliban or pulling Saddam from a rat hole and I certainly don't see them doing much else for the cause of global peace other than making themselves feel good every time they hear themselves talk.

Do I dare go on? The Congolese war crimes of the Belgians perhaps? European procrastination in Yugoslavia? Uganda? Has Tibet been "free'd" yet or has another rock star made another cool couple of thousand off a useless jingo slogan?

At least Astro isn't afraid to use his fists when talking proves useless and he's usually better at judging sooner than most procrastinating "peaceniks".

[fafner]

Originally posted by dannavy85+Feb 25 2005, 08:38 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (dannavy85 @ Feb 25 2005, 08:38 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>[i]The ones who bomb another country and consider their detractors as traitors whatever their arguments.


Better to liberate a people than to leave them enslaved to a tyrant with the help of the UN, Europeans and Presidents like Bill Clinton. [/b]

I thought the sentence was clear, my apologies if I am a very bad English writer. I was not saying that freeing a country is bad, merely that considering detractors as traitors whatever their arguments is bad.
You may say that freeing a country can't suffer criticisms because it's good, and you may be right. However freeing Iraq had terrible consequences because of the way it was done. It wasn't bad by itself, only by the way it was done. Using the argument of weapons of mass destruction without convicing anyone was the first error. Bypassing the UN was another. I am not even saying that there was no WMD, nor that it is bad to bypass UN. Because too many people were convinced there was no WMD and bypassing UN is bad, USA made a large part of the world their enemies. And THIS is bad. Not for the world, for the USA. Dumping diplomacy is not to be considered lightly.
<!--QuoteBegin--dannavy85[/i]@Feb 25 2005, 08:38 PM
At least Astro isn't afraid to use his fists when talking proves useless and he's usually better at judging sooner than most procrastinating "peaceniks".[/quote]
Please don't mess Astro with that.