How did you discover Astro Boy?

[ASTROBUDDY]

In Hot Dog Corps a northern country goes by the name of the Uran Empire.

Well what do you know! Uran has her own country! How's that for all you Uran lovers out there?! Any way to get back to the purpose of this thread let me tell you how I discovered "Shin TetsuWan Atomu"! Back in the late eighties/early nineties, comic book/sci-fi conventions had many dealers who were selling videos of many different old TV shows and movies! The big movie companies were not at the time catering to sci-fi fans like they do today! Back then only certain individual (we'll call them independent) dealers were selling these items! Well at one such convention a dealer calling himself "Tokyo in Brooklyn" was selling what he called "Astro Boy" in color! These guys always brought along their own VCRs and portable TVs! He played for me the video and I saw a boy robot who I did not recognize speaking in Japanese! I asked the dealer who it was and this young black dude said "Astro Boy!" So I thought that maybe when they made the color series, Astro Boy had been redesigned! (I later found out that I was really looking at young Atlas!) I asked him if it were subtitled as I am not fluent in Japanese and he said no and said the tape is $20.00 (US dollars) I bought the tape and later discovered that the tape contained the first four episodes of "Shin TetsuWan Atomu" which had been broadcast in Japan on Sept. 6, 1980 as a special two-hour preview of the new series which would begin airing regularly on Oct. 1, 1980! I found the new "Astroboy" fascinating so I began searching out everything I could about the new show and thus began a new obsession with all things "Astro"!

[Uran-chan]

[QUOTE=jeffbert;90224]In Hot Dog Corps a northern country goes by the name of the Uran Empire.

Well what do you know! Uran has her own country! How's that for all you Uran lovers out there?! Any way to get back to the purpose of this thread let me tell you how I discovered "Shin TetsuWan Atomu"! Back in the late eighties/early nineties, comic book/sci-fi conventions had many dealers who were selling videos of many different old TV shows and movies! The big movie companies were not at the time catering to sci-fi fans like they do today! Back then only certain individual (we'll call them independent) dealers were selling these items! Well at one such convention a dealer calling himself "Tokyo in Brooklyn" was selling what he called "Astro Boy" in color! These guys always brought along their own VCRs and portable TVs! He played for me the video and I saw a boy robot who I did not recognize speaking in Japanese! I asked the dealer who it was and this young black dude said "Astro Boy!" So I thought that maybe when they made the color series, Astro Boy had been redesigned! (I later found out that I was really looking at young Atlas!) I asked him if it were subtitled as I am not fluent in Japanese and he said no and said the tape is $20.00 (US dollars) I bought the tape and later discovered that the tape contained the first four episodes of "Shin TetsuWan Atomu" which had been broadcast in Japan on Sept. 6, 1980 as a special two-hour preview of the new series which would begin airing regularly on Oct. 1, 1980! I found the new "Astroboy" fascinating so I began searching out everything I could about the new show and thus began a new obsession with all things "Astro"![/QUOTE]

Its more cheap if you buy in ebay.....

[Fauna]

Its more cheap if you buy in ebay.....

Well, he did say he bought the tape in the late eighties, so there wouldn't be an eBay then.

[ASTROBUDDY]

[QUOTE=ASTROBUDDY;90234][QUOTE=jeffbert;90224]In Hot Dog Corps a northern country goes by the name of the Uran Empire.

Well what do you know! Uran has her own country! How's that for all you Uran lovers out there?! Any way to get back to the purpose of this thread let me tell you how I discovered "Shin TetsuWan Atomu"! Back in the late eighties/early nineties, comic book/sci-fi conventions had many dealers who were selling videos of many different old TV shows and movies! The big movie companies were not at the time catering to sci-fi fans like they do today! Back then only certain individual (we'll call them independent) dealers were selling these items! Well at one such convention a dealer calling himself "Tokyo in Brooklyn" was selling what he called "Astro Boy" in color! These guys always brought along their own VCRs and portable TVs! He played for me the video and I saw a boy robot who I did not recognize speaking in Japanese! I asked the dealer who it was and this young black dude said "Astro Boy!" So I thought that maybe when they made the color series, Astro Boy had been redesigned! (I later found out that I was really looking at young Atlas!) I asked him if it were subtitled as I am not fluent in Japanese and he said no and said the tape is $20.00 (US dollars) I bought the tape and later discovered that the tape contained the first four episodes of "Shin TetsuWan Atomu" which had been broadcast in Japan on Sept. 6, 1980 as a special two-hour preview of the new series which would begin airing regularly on Oct. 1, 1980! I found the new "Astroboy" fascinating so I began searching out everything I could about the new show and thus began a new obsession with all things "Astro"![/QUOTE]

Its more cheap if you buy in ebay.....[/QUOTE]
This was before e-bay and way before I had access to computers! As I stated above the only way one could get these tapes back then was at a convention, where one could see the product or else you would not know the quality of the merchandise! I am talking about before the Right Stuf and before Siren Entertainment!

[Uran-chan]

[QUOTE=Astroboy1900;90239][QUOTE=ASTROBUDDY;90234][QUOTE=jeffbert;90224]In Hot Dog Corps a northern country goes by the name of the Uran Empire.

Well what do you know! Uran has her own country! How's that for all you Uran lovers out there?! Any way to get back to the purpose of this thread let me tell you how I discovered "Shin TetsuWan Atomu"! Back in the late eighties/early nineties, comic book/sci-fi conventions had many dealers who were selling videos of many different old TV shows and movies! The big movie companies were not at the time catering to sci-fi fans like they do today! Back then only certain individual (we'll call them independent) dealers were selling these items! Well at one such convention a dealer calling himself "Tokyo in Brooklyn" was selling what he called "Astro Boy" in color! These guys always brought along their own VCRs and portable TVs! He played for me the video and I saw a boy robot who I did not recognize speaking in Japanese! I asked the dealer who it was and this young black dude said "Astro Boy!" So I thought that maybe when they made the color series, Astro Boy had been redesigned! (I later found out that I was really looking at young Atlas!) I asked him if it were subtitled as I am not fluent in Japanese and he said no and said the tape is $20.00 (US dollars) I bought the tape and later discovered that the tape contained the first four episodes of "Shin TetsuWan Atomu" which had been broadcast in Japan on Sept. 6, 1980 as a special two-hour preview of the new series which would begin airing regularly on Oct. 1, 1980! I found the new "Astroboy" fascinating so I began searching out everything I could about the new show and thus began a new obsession with all things "Astro"![/QUOTE]

Its more cheap if you buy in ebay.....[/QUOTE]
This was before e-bay and way before I had access to computers! As I stated above the only way one could get these tapes back then was at a convention, where one could see the product or else you would not know the quality of the merchandise! I am talking about before the Right Stuf and before Siren Entertainment! [/QUOTE]

oh ok....its little confusing..

[Uran-chan]

[QUOTE=Astroboy1900;90138][QUOTE=ASTROBUDDY;90132]Hey guys! I hate to spoil everybody's fun, but to get back to the question @ the top of the thread, I am reminded of when I first met Urane, (whom I knew as Astro Girl)! One of my favorite episodes featuring her is from the original series! One of the Christmas shows! Its Japanese title, I believe, translated as, "Robot House"! In this episode, (The Wonderful Christmas Present!), in this one scene, Astro Girl is shaking this tree where a squirrel friend of the little boy inhabitant of this amazing house lives, and after, I believe, the little boy inhabitant of the amazing house (I can't bring his name to mind @ this moment) tells her to stop! She does so and the squirrel comes out of the tree wearing his paw in a sling and waving a white flag! [For those not in the know, the other Christmas show was "The Snow Lion!") [Before someone harrasses me, yes I know the thread says "Astro Boy", I already covered that when I came to this thread! I just wanted to put my two cents into this because I agree! Uran(ium) in her current incarnation of Zoran is kind of cute! (Of course she is also cute as Astro Girl and as Urane too! Let's face it, Atomu has a great looking family!)

you type urane instead of uran..well i ll admit its cute
uran is one of your favorite characters?

were the same i liked uran roo [/QUOTE]

I type Urane because I believe Jay Rath said that was the way it was spelt in their scripts! It also makes sense! The "e" at the end gives it the long vowel sound! Uran in English should be pronounced "you-ran" or "oo-ran", not "you-rain"! But with the "e" at the end, Urane can be correctly pronounced "you-rain"! Yes, although I do like "Astro Girl" lets not forget "Astro Boy" is the star of the show and re-discovering him shows how amazing he really is & why he became our favorite in the first place! As the song says "What can I do to be like you and become a real "Astro" boy![/QUOTE]

if you ask me i will not torelate with that conversation..it doesnt materwhat you call a character but totaly .why don t you say zoran instead of urane after zoran is in the english version

totally i wonder how did the USA turn uran to zoran

[ASTROBUDDY]

This totally is a guess on my part, but did you know that one of the other translations of her Japanese name was once spelt "Oran"! My guess is that someone took that translation and decided to add a "Z" to the beginning and "viola"! "ZORAN"! But this again is just a guess on my part!

[Uran-chan]

This totally is a guess on my part, but did you know that one of the other translations of her Japanese name was once spelt "Oran"! My guess is that someone took that translation and decided to add a "Z" to the beginning and "viola"! "ZORAN"! But this again is just a guess on my part!

i don t know either i haven t watch the japanese version yet..for a complicated reason...unlucky

[jeffbert]

I think it may have been a combination of wanting a name that would lip-sync, & wanting to avoid any confusion with 'urine.'

[ASTROBUDDY]

I think it may have been a combination of wanting a name that would lip-sync, & wanting to avoid any confusion with 'urine.'

Another good possibility! But getting back to the main topic of this thread, while rediscovering Astro Boy I believe I was instrumental in letting people know that there were two English dubs of the 1980 TetsuWan Atomu series! You see while I was searching for the English version of the show and trying to figure out why it had not aired in New York, someone told me it aired in Canada and sold me a copy of a tape with the Canadian Dub! I still could not believe it did not air in the U.S. when at a convention I bought what a dealer was advertising as color Astroboy tapes! After I bought and took them home to play, I realized they were different dubs! [On one tape you could even see the call letters for a U.S. TV station (WTGI-61)] At about this same time Siren Entertainment was advertising their tapes of the 1980s series and from their descriptions, I knew that the same version had aired in both the U.S. & Australia! Also at the same time the Right Stuf International who had sold tapes of the original series had announced that they were going to sell the 1980s series in the U.S.! I immediately called RSI & was referred to someone there and I asked if this was going to be the same dub as the Australian dub (at the time I did not know that the English dubbing was done in the U.S.) or the Canadian dub! At first the RSI representative had no idea what I was talking about when I explained the differences between the two dubs and he realized that what he had was not the Canadian dub (which apparently he had believed it was)! [The Canadian dub has different names for each character than the official dub which aired in both the U.S. & Australia as he realized in the material of information on the series he had! The names were the same for some of the characters with those of the original series!] I believe that this is what led to the mutual cooperation between RSI, Madman Entertainment (which evolved from Siren Entertainment) and Tezuka Productions evolving into the restoration of Astro Boy, the original series and the remake series! [i.e. in Australia both series are sold by Madman Entertainment! In the U.S.A. the original series is sold by RSI and the remake series is sold by Manga Entertainment, Madman's U.S.affliate!] Next time I'll tell you how I was instrumental in correcting an error in the Astro Boy episode guide!