AstroBoy Online Forums

So, the "Favorite Minor Characters" thread brought up the interesting (and mildly frustrating) point of how Cobalt's very rarely involved in anything. And so, I figure now's a good time to pose the question that's been bugging me for years:

What does he actually do during all that off-screen time?

I have a partial theory that after Chi-tan happened, he wound up doing a lot of babysitting, but that still doesn't really explain everything else. Maybe he goes on his own adventures? Maybe he just spends all day on the internet? I dunno. That's why I'd love to hear your take on it. vwv

Maybe he would become an academic and go to school and get a really prestigious degree in something like psychology. But of course that would be a work in progress. While going to school perhaps he forms deep bonds with humans and robots. In his 'teen' years perhaps feeling inadequate in the shadow of his younger brother he goes on a rebellious streak and runs around in a gang trying to find his true self. However after a few months of that and seeing the futility of such a life and after being 'picked up' by Atom he settles back down and begins to think deeply on the relationships between humans and robots and the differences in psychology. This prompts his interest in the subject.

But really, in his youth while his brother was off flying around saving the world perhaps he (with friends) turned into a big nerd and indulged in comics and cosplay, often frequenting conventions.

He could do any number of things, and since we have no proof of what he does canonically it is almost all valid. What a fun thought.

He probably spends his time with Uran and his parents at home. But yeah, I can definitely see Cobalt reading comic books and cosplaying! ^_^!

Cobalt was always portrayed on screen as a slightly doofy guy. In fact, he was really a closet nerd, and had many times the IQ of his more famous brother. He actually applied for admission to MIT and was accepted. Commuting between Mushi Studios and Cambridge Mass would have been a problem, but Cobalt WAS able to fly on his own. "Tezuka never let me use my own leg and arm jets on screen" Cobalt complained "He had me use those stupid strap on's. I think he was getting a kick back from the Bell corporation."

Then there was the time that Astro had been missing in action for several weeks. He and Atlas had run off to go see the NY World's fair and had lost track of time. Astro was missing for the filming of several episodes of the second season of "Tetsuwan Atom". To this day nobody realizes that Cobalt had dressed up as Astro ("How hard was that?") and filled in for him.

Haha, these are some great thoughts! I didn't quite expect us to go mapping out his entire life (I'd originally meant this within just the context of the series), but that's okay because I have headcanons for all that too. vwv

I'm definitely on the "Cobalt is a Giant Comic Book Nerd" bandwagon and have been there for awhile. I'm not getting off of it either.

I imagine in teenager-dom, he'd certainly have a lot of self-esteem issues in regards to Astro and he'd probably be really quiet and withdrawn in public, but pretend to be cool on the internet and blog about dumb things and taking bad cosplay selfies or something. He probably wouldn't be terribly popular on or offline, but he'd probably have at least one or two friends.

But I think by the time he managed to go out on his own, he'd probably get over a lot of that and come out of his shell again because he'd finally have some distance from Astro and all those expectations he probably felt to be like him.

And then I always figured that since he could never really fly like Astro, (and given his apparent enthusiasm for it in Robot Polymer, making airplane noises and everything when he finally got those strap-on jets) that he'd be interested in aviation. I picture him working his way up to being a test pilot or something and adopting a bunch of human kids in the vein of Brando from Pluto. I dunno, he seems like he'd be a fun dad.

Frankly I just picture him as varying degrees of "Gigantic Dork" through and through.