AstroBoy Online Forums

I always in a way assumed that the characters in the Tezuka stories where sort of like how actors would be to film. They appear in multiple works, they even played double roles. Think about the amount of times you see Hyo appear in one of his cartoons, the way Tezuka himself cameos in the cartoons is like how Hitchcock would make cameos in his own films. So canon-wize, are the characters in a way actors who act in the stories (of course, they're still fiction). It's kind of crazy, but hey, it's interesting to think about.

Something new? Tezuka's "Star System" has been written about so many times, it is very well known. Mustachio and Lamp are probably the two must used of his "actors" appearing in many roles. Lamp isn't always a villain either, he plays a policeman in Blackjack (though that makes him a heavy because BJ is an unlicensed doctor that sometimes is hunted by the law).

Heck, Tezuka once charted out how much each "actor" got paid. I think you can find the list somewhere, but I'm too lazy at the moment to go looking it up. :I

@Tetsuwan Penguin
I'm kind of new to the Star System, I know a bit about Atom and Mars, but I'm not that familiar with some other shows like BlackJack and Kimba. The Star System is basically Tezuka's list of actors/characters? I'll look up on it. Sounds interesting.

Funny, as soon as I looked it up I noticed the source used the same actor comparison.

@Sporkia
Really? Wow. You learn something new everyday indeed.

Atomu-chan played two roles in the Black Jack manga. In the first one, he was one of BJ's patients. In the second one...he was...KAWAII...this really, really KAWAII little kid...and he got kidnapped by SKUNK KUSAI and a bunch of other Tezuka villians....