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The wonderful lady, who seems to resemble Astro fangirls and might have been written in response to their existence, also got rather rough treatment.

She just disappears after starring in one episode.

Could there be an intra-world reason, or was this Tezuka forgetting about her?

Let's see. While his existence is a secret and she works for Hamegg, she needs to keep silent and can't risk contacting the Japanese Ministry of Science. Hamegg might learn about this, leading to grave repercussions for her.

(And a possible international lawsuit - but, the way the contract is written, at least in the English, it would get shredded in court! If the robot is an "item" then it can't sign its own contracts and the piece of paper is null and void even if Hamegg kept another copy).

So, the first question is, did Astro'80, as opposed to Astro'63, have any missions that were likely to hit international media? He probably did, but just double-checking.

After the robot surfaces in the media, Kathy is likely to be fired and... and here we have one really bad option - she was murdered off-screen by Hamegg. With his limited intellectual power he might have done that - and got caught, encountering the end of the series either serving a long sentence or on death row.

But if she remained alive and no longer depends on Hamegg, would she not try to contact the Ministry? And... get stonewalled by the supposedly good and gentle Ochanomizu/Elefun?!

I just don't get it.

EDIT. Perhaps Hamegg is not her boss, but her father? And even after he learned the truth, he asks her not to contact Astro and she stays a loyal daughter despite everything?

Anyone understands Japanese? Perhaps the Japanese soundtrack makes it clear she is his daughter or something?

I had thought of that myself a few times; how can Tenma's property legally sign a contract? Or, a minor child signing a contract, for that matter. In this case, Tenma has the rights as both owner and papa. But are we over-analyzing this? I recall the geek-boy on Robot Chicken critiquing certain characters' depictions in the sketches. I think they were GI Joes, & he was saying they would never do this or that.

Inconsistencies are in many series. I just love it when some 'new' feature or power is revealed in the 2nd or 3rd season of a show, and we wonder why it was never even mentioned before; it sure would have been handy in some earlier episodes.

Actually, I just feel bad about the story of Kathy, and am trying to analyze away the idea that Tezuka forgot about her for no reason whatsoever. This would be my first, ever, disappointment at Tezuka (I mean Tezuka as an author, of course - I never expected him to be perfect as a person).

The contract thing is easy to explain. The paper is void, but it takes a lawyer to explain this fact. Neither Astro nor Ochanomizu/Elefun nor Kathy are lawyers. Hamegg is either simply bluffing, or believes his own bluff.

I tend to see the first 3 episodes, and subsequent episodes featuring Atlas, as sort of separate. I mean, they're in the same universe and all, but they were clearly done to infuse some new things in the story, while all the other episodes are simply adaptations of manga chapters, or brand new stories that could just as well be part of the manga universe. That would explain why we never see Tenma again; you can simply assume that it is the same as in the manga, it's just that moments where he appears haven't been animated into episodes.

Consider how one episode recalls that Astro was abandoned because he couldn't grow. That was not in those first episodes, and is actually just from the manga.

Oops, I did not know about THAT goof. It has to mean production issues or something.

Or possibly the first episodes were produced, or at least scripted, last? That would explain everything. If Kathy is a last moment addition, it's good that she got in at all.

As for Tenma, I think I read somewhere that he is, in the Japanese, referred to as having died of a heart attack. In the English he (as Boyton) "disappeared", but then Elefun tells Astro that Boyton "loved" Astro anyway - in the past tense. If Boyton was simply missing Elefun would spean in the rpesent tense, harbouring hope he might be alive.

Anyhow, my son preferred Astro '63 to Astro '80, and he might have a point. Now to find Astro '63 with *intelligible* English sound, or to wait until he can read fast enough to watch the subs! (He prefers '09 to both, too...)

The 1980's boxset includes the subtitled version. It's not dubtitles but a true translation of the original script, and Tenma is said to have disappeared as well. I know he is said to have died in the Canadian dub.

Kathy doesn't seem to fear Hamegg, however. And then she had the idea to teach the act to Astro, saving Hamegg's circus, plus Hamegg had promised her he would let Astro go if he succeded, so he's the one who would owe something to her and broke his promise. She also seems to be very competent.

I'm sure at least some of Astro's actions couldn't have been missed even in America, but that doesn't mean things went wrong for Kathy either.

She's gone. She's gone so well and truly that even a Google search for "Astro Boy Kathy" does not yield her pictures. And this is bad for a practical reason, too.

I looked at her more closely and she seems to be designed for expressing strong emotions with relatively momentary animation and drawing that is, at least, not too subtle. There really should be more Kathy fan art because it just might work!

So, let me fix the "no Google results" thing here and now. The Kathy screenshots! I took some time to catch those that would give an idea of her emotional range. This IS the one and only Kathy from Astro Boy, Mr. Google Bot.















And now the "Astro Fangirl Kathy" pictures:

Kathy talks about Astro (no, really, she is doing exactly that in the episode!)



Kathy doing exactly what every Astro fangirl wants to do. I mean, of course, stroking Astro's face. (Took long to catch, because this is only shown for a moment, then switches to a close-up of his face and her hand):

"jeffbert" wrote:I had thought of that myself a few times; how can Tenma's property legally sign a contract? Or, a minor child signing a contract, for that matter. In this case, Tenma has the rights as both owner and papa. But are we over-analyzing this? I recall the geek-boy on Robot Chicken critiquing certain characters' depictions in the sketches. I think they were GI Joes, & he was saying they would never do this or that.

Inconsistencies are in many series. I just love it when some 'new' feature or power is revealed in the 2nd or 3rd season of a show, and we wonder why it was never even mentioned before; it sure would have been handy in some earlier episodes.

I know how it is . I have been a fan of Power Rangers from the first season up and it made zero to no sense how they magically had all of these power available only at certain points of time, ie when they wrecked their megazords, lost powers , or just ditched their old powers for no reason. Never helped they changed suits every season after the third, making it just unnecessary...Also take Aang's sudden Energybending revelation from the final two episodes so he wouldn't have to kill Ozai...pure convenience.

Now take Astro Boy , who is the same character throughout the entire run that has maybe? two or three separate origins and two to three endings . It's perfectly normal to have convenient deux ex machinas in TV series, but if they are glaring and only detract from the story's overall climax ,plot and make it strongly anticlimactic is where we run into a multitude of problems.

Tezuka's minor problem is about as bad in Avatar's "Kyoshi Island" and "The Boiling Rock Part 2" episodes where characters introduced just leave unmentioned for the rest of the entire series/show up far later to develop secondary leads or like the GS Ball in Pokemon. They hope you forget about the minor issue and gloss over it with the episodes after through inference, though it becomes a problem when the information is absorbed by the fandom and wonder why the characters just dissappear.

We will probably never know since Osamu Tezuka-sensei has been dead for so many years unless his notes revealed more info.

"Astro Forever" wrote:I'm sure at least some of Astro's actions couldn't have been missed even in America, but that doesn't mean things went wrong for Kathy either.

The question is, however, why she does not reappear. There seem to be "out-of-world" reasons for that (some apparent detachment between first 3 eps and the rest in production); it's harder to see an inworld reason.

Wait, perhaps, it just might be too expensive for a circus assistant to fly to Japan? (And, of course, for Tezuka Productions to animate her in again). But at least they should have thrown in a letter from her or something. A couple of lines of text and a static of her face, just once in a beginning or ending of something, would make a lot of difference without breaking the bank.

Well, that's my Tezuka honeymoon period over - apparently he even made mistakes as an author and this was one... to err is human, and he was not REALLY a god.