The "Remaking of Astro Boy" documentary was ... interesting. I have a newfound disrespect for the American distributors.
At the start of the documentary they show a US TV representative (Mark Handler, a Disney exec) telling the Japanese anime makers it's "too intense and dramatic and will not air on US television". He basically pressured them into making changes for the series to be more pallatable to a US market, and let them know the US TV broadcast codes. "Why do they have to make a children's show so sad or dramatic?" was the US side. They didn't even want to show a superhero going to school. (!
There's a particular scene where the American guy starts talking about a child's thought process on implied violence. It comes across as a typic US television rep who is so out of touch with everything but ratings and money. Overall, they wanted to focus on the hero aspect of Astro rather than the child aspect.
In a final twist of the knife, the US didn't even show half the series on TV.
Apparently Mark spent a few years with them, so I don't know what their relationship was like or how the Japanese felt about the whole thing, but having seen the documentary it's really made it clear to my why the series was lacking. Its soul was extracted by a Disney exec.
Leave the making of anime to the Japanese, I say.
:angry:
