Astroboy 1980

[Astro Forever]

Originally posted by Guest@Feb 18 2006, 01:13 PM
His name is Walpur Guiss, named after the 8th century English nun Walpurgis who became a missionary in Germany. In German, the pronounciation is more like Volporgis. The Japanese sounds like this too, although I'm not sure of the spelling.

But why name the villain after a nun? Walpurgis was canonised by the Catholic Church in 779, and her day coincided with a pagan festival. It came to be called Walpurgisnacht, or Walpurgis Night, where the witches would celebrate on The Brocken (a mountain in Germany) in the presence of the devil.
Also, Walpurgis Night was the day in 1966 when the Church of Satan was founded, and the night in 1945 when Adolf Hitler committed suicide.

"Walpur Guiss" appears on the back of one of the Siren VHS covers, and Atlas calls him Guiss for short (pronounced "Jiss").

Very interesting, thanks!

I had heard of Walpurgis Night, don't know from where though... That's all I knew about it.

That said, I did notice that his last name was pronounced "Jiss", which, unless there is something that escapes me, wouldn't be pronounced the same way as "Guiss". That and how the "Walpurgis" Night was spelled made me spell it "Giss", though now I even wonder why I didn't opt for "Gis". :huh:

As for "Walpur Guiss" appearing on the back of the Siren covers, obviously I couldn't know since I don't own it. But is it reliable? On Madman's extras, it's written "Dr. Boyton". I knew of the last name "Boynton" but not "Boyton". Out of curiosity, I've just checked and the name "Boyton" does exist, although it's extremely rare, while there are thousands of "Boynton". But I clearly hear "Boynton" in the first 1963 episodes, and it sounds like it to me in the 1980 series as well.

Anyway, I'll edit my previous post.

[Eileen sobora]

It's sad to see that in the uk and us says that the series was too dark come on it been like tat with other cartoons such as yugi-oh and pokemon. it has voilence :angry:

[Astro Forever]

Originally posted by Guest@Feb 19 2006, 05:46 PM
The only "official" variations from Astroboy I've seen written are Walpurgis, Walpur Guiss and Volporgis. Volporgis is just wrong - that's the phonetic of Walpurgis.
(Walpurgis is occassionally written as Walpur’gis, by the way)

I'll re-edit my message. How is it now?

Technically, Walpurgis has a hard G sound. But it's perfectly reasonable to pronounce Guiss with a soft G, like Guisseppi/Giuseppe.

Interesting, I knew of the latter but not the former, thanks.

Incidentally, Wikipedia reports the American name is Walpur Guiss, as opposed to the alternative Count Walpurgis. But it also claims the American and Canadian versions are the same (! . Perhaps this mistake has the same source as the Siren covers (which seem to have a problem not so much with spelling but with entirely different names altogether), but unless the Canadian dub turns up and is more distinctly pronounced as Walpur Guiss, I daresay the spelling of the US/Australian name is Walpur Guiss.

I can't say about the English Canadian dub, but in the French dub, it's pronounced "Valpurjis". I've just checked again to make sure and I hear it clearly. I can't figure out why they would have said "jis" if they had a script that said "guiss", because I don't know of any soft G when it's followed by an "u" in French, which is why I didn't get how "Guiss" could be pronounced "Jiss".

But then Elefun said "Valpur" and not "Walpur" (where W=V, just like in German, and the "u" was a French "u"... I could create a .wav if anybody wants to hear it), so I don't know how they came up with that pronounciation. They may have assumed that it was a German name and pronounced it that way. But I don't remember anything specific about the "gi" sound in German. :huh:

I don't remember where, but I'm pretty sure Skunk called him simply "count" at one point in the subtitles (it might have been at the beginning of Japanese episode #1). As for Wikipedia, well they may even have used this website as a source, who knows, so I'm afraid it will not do much to settle the matter. And while they usually have "Boynton", they also have one occurrence of "Boyton"!

[Astro Forever]

Just a note to say I corrected Alvin's French last name in episode #3.

Originally posted by Episode #6@Robot Land
Characters

Saturn (or sometimes "Saturn the Devil King"), Devil King, ?
Doctor Hyde, Professor Hyde, ?
Odette, Odette, ?
Siegfried, Siegfried, ?

I haven't seen the Japanese version and didn't notice any difference between the US version and Manga's.
I watched it in French, but it was too long ago to remember anything valuable!

[Astro Forever]

Originally posted by Episode #7@ Frankenstein
Character

Franken, Frankenstein, Frankenstein

JPN - Haven't seen it

US and Manga -

I didn't notice any difference between them.

CAN/French -
We don't get to see the robot losing some parts while he speaks in Astro's arms (I mean we see the robot, just not when he loses parts).
A few seconds while Skunk is walking on the street to reach Frankenstein have been cut.
We don't get to see the ballerina attacked by Frankenstein, nor do we see her in pieces. After she enters her dressing room, it cuts to the police car and some man explains that "he knocked her out and stole her diadem". The beginning of the conversation between the policemen and Astro has been cut.
The damaged robots in the jewelry and in the bank aren't shown.
While we see the boss taking out the cook robot's energy cassette, we don't see the robot falling down, nor the boss insisting to take out the energy cassette of the other robot cook and the robot begging him not to.
We don't see the robot firefighters down either.
Everything from Theodore catching up with Astro on their way to school to Daddy Walrus stepping in to stop the squabble between Astro and Alvin has been cut.
Astro isn't shown being electrocuted in close-up, we only see the lightning and him falling on the ground.
Alvin doesn't step in while the policemen arrest Astro.
Astro's mom isn't shown after Elefun has removed Astro's energy cassette.
Frankenstein isn't shown smashing through the truck, he's shown a little after it happened, then Skunk is wondering what is happening to him. People aren't running away in the street, and Frankenstein doesn't throw the cars. It's picking up again when he's on fire and gets in the building.
No helicopter shoots at Frankenstein.
While Frankenstein holds Skunk's men, Astro say their leader has escaped, and Walrus doesn't try to catch up with Skunk while he's leaving in a helicopter.
The robot firefighters aren't shown when they arrive.

A very cute moment: at the end, the firefighters say "thank you" and "goodbye" to Astro as he is flying away!

[Astro Forever]

Originally posted by Episode #8@ The Red Cat
Characters

Professor DevilCat (that’s how the subtitles on Manga’s version write it, I don’t know exactly what his Japanese name is), Professor Leopold, ?
Chili, Chili, ?

JPN -
I haven’t seen it.

US -
A little part of Professor Leopold electrocution has been cut (included in the extras on Madman’s version)

CAN/French
Haven’t seen this one in a while either.

Manga
Professor Leopold’s full electrocution has been put back in the episode.

[Astro Forever]

Originally posted by Guest+Feb 20 2006, 06:15 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Guest @ Feb 20 2006, 06:15 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>This crossed my mind too, the only word I can think of is Beetleguise. But I think it's the [i]sound after the G rather than the letter that matters, and there are a lot of GI words with a soft G.[/b]

I don't know in other languages, but not in my first language.

<!--QuoteBegin--Guest[/i]@Feb 20 2006, 06:15 PM
I award us both 1000 points for pedantic irrelevance. [/quote]


Maybe, but I found those little details interesting. It reminds me when I was randomly browsing though Wikipedia and found a list of famous people who had been beheaded. :wacko: Goliath was among them, which surprised me because I had never heard of this, but apparently David kills him in some versions of the story. Of course, I immediately thought of "Goliath's Head". Whoever chose "Goliath" as the English name for this robot surely knew what he was doing! I thought he was called "Goliath" only because he was big.