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While Astro is usually thought of wearing those 'famous' red boots, he doesn't ALWAYS wear them. If you look through the stories in the dark horse manga reprints, you'll see in some stories he's wearing the boots, in others he's wearing 'flat' shoes (it's not clear if they are shoes, sandals, or just a red heal at the bottom of his foot.) In the 1960's Anime, he is shown in the 'flats' at 'creation' and doesn't have the boots till he is in the circus.

In the manga, when he is wearing clothes he is more likely to have the flats on. Tezuka isn't consistent in the Anime on this (likely because of cel reuse), but even in the manga this varies from story to story, and sometimes even within a story.

Also in flying scenes it varies if when using the leg jets if the boots are on or off. And speaking of jets, I wonder if Jeffbert or someone else here has the Japanese uncut videos for the episodes dubbed into English. I know that Ladd cut most of the scenes with the waist guns out. I suspect he also cut scenes with the arm jets. Only in the episodes seen only in Japan (I know of 3 or 4 of them) do you find the arm jets in the '63 series. And there Astro doesn't use them for flying, he uses them as a kind of weapon, flame thrower, or to kick up some wind.

Wait, he cut out most of the butt gun shots? Why? Seems like it would've gone over well in a children's cartoon, back in the day.

"Little Brown Fox" wrote:Wait, he cut out most of the butt gun shots? Why? Seems like it would've gone over well in a children's cartoon, back in the day.

Yup. IIRC there is only one episode in the '63 English dub that actually has the butt guns. I don't remember off hand which one that was, and even that sequence was edited down quite a bit.

... WAT :T That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I know I saw some of the deleted scenes from the dub, and it was mostly his butt guns. I kind of wished they hadn't done that because there were a couple episodes where Astro would use them to escape from a situation, but the dub would cut it out to make it look like things exploded by themselves or phantom lasers saved the day, and it bugged me to death until I figured out it was supposed to be his butt guns doing the dirty work. :I

Phantom Lasers. :3

Ahhh yes . . . perhaps the most famous inconsistency of all . . . the boots/shoes/feet.

@ Tetsuwan Penguin - actually Astro DOES wear boots at his birth in the 1960's anime, but in the 1980's anime, he does NOT.

The on-again / off-again appearance drove me nutz, so I figured maybe Astro had the ability to toggle back and forth between bare legs and booted legs (somehow his "skin" could "shift") - and that became a part of my head canon!

As for the butt gunz - OMG I remember the first/only time I saw them as a kid - I was shocked and laughed at once. I thought they were a "new addition" to Astro until I spoke with Tod Ferson (who we can pretty much single-handedly thank for collecting and saving the Astro anime we see today) - and he told me that it had pretty much all been edited out for America. If you get the The Right Stuf boxed set with deleted scenes, you'll see a whole bunch of butt gun edits.

I wondered if it might have looked to much like Astro was pooping on his opponents for the US censors :d oh:

Look again. In episode #1 he is BAREFOOT on the operating table. He walks off it wearing flats. In one scene by the blackboard, he even seems to be wearing SOCKS!
The boots do not appear till he is at the circus, in the very first scene under the spotlight.

"AprilSeven" wrote:Ahhh yes . . . perhaps the most famous inconsistency of all . . . the boots/shoes/feet.

@ Tetsuwan Penguin - actually Astro DOES wear boots at his birth in the 1960's anime, but in the 1980's anime, he does NOT.

The on-again / off-again appearance drove me nutz, so I figured maybe Astro had the ability to toggle back and forth between bare legs and booted legs (somehow his "skin" could "shift") - and that became a part of my head canon!

As for the butt gunz - OMG I remember the first/only time I saw them as a kid - I was shocked and laughed at once. I thought they were a "new addition" to Astro until I spoke with Tod Ferson (who we can pretty much single-handedly thank for collecting and saving the Astro anime we see today) - and he told me that it had pretty much all been edited out for America. If you get the The Right Stuf boxed set with deleted scenes, you'll see a whole bunch of butt gun edits.

I wondered if it might have looked to much like Astro was pooping on his opponents for the US censors :d oh:

I think that there was more than one episode with the butt guns in the 1960s English production because I remembered thinking while watching it how odd it was that some of the scenes with the guns were taken out and others were not. I know that the scenes that do have them are somewhat rare and easily can be overlooked, so maybe that's what happened with editors (not sure if Ladd himself edited the animation) when going through the episodes.

I know that the butt guns are in the episode titled Attack from Space English episode 62, but any other episodes I cannot say off the top of my head.

As for the boot/booties thing... I think even in the manga Tezuka randomly had him switch between the two, sometimes just between panels. Probably was a mix of doing whatever was easiest at the time and during animation a mix of poor communication. Also recycling scenes to make animating easier and quicker to meet with strict deadlines.

I am checking my notes, I noted fanny guns cut:

1. 60, Demon Bees (53, Dogma Palace)
2. 66, Space Viking (57, Vikings)
3. 79 Dr. Brain (70, Super Brain))
4. 95, Evil Punch Card (86, Magic Punch Card
5. 97, Confrontation in Space (88, Contest in Space)

With only 5 instances of cutting noted, I think there were more than a few others in which the guns are not cut.