I believe that Cobalt and Chi-tan are obsolete.

[Little Brown Fox]

Heh, if they didn't botch the dub, I'd bet that they'd have no problem appealing to female audiences- not necessarily in the age demographic they were aiming for, but still a lot of fan girls (girls love cute things).

AprilSeven: While I'd like to see his character explored as an older child (as long as it's in a context that fits), he doesn't really /have/ to be the older brother. Sure, he may be taller in most appearances (and skinnier, in some renderings), but remember, there's another famous pair of brothers with the same, "older-but-shorter; younger-but-taller" shtick (Mario and Luigi, anyone?).

Aside from age, though, I honestly don't care, as long as he's included. Sure, he can be kinda derpy sometimes, but that's part of what makes him so likable. And I suspect that he was much more relevant in the time that he was introduced in the manga, up until he was "killed off" and then brought back after about a year or two, as something of a "comic relief" type character.

[AprilSeven]

OMG - wouldn't a Mario Bros game with Astro and Cobalt in their roles be ADORABLE??

When I saw Cobalt back in the 60's anime I thought he made perfect sense - especially because he was physically so different from the "final design."

I thought Tenma built him taller because HE'S very tall and slender, and figured that Tobio would have physically grown over the year spent building his replacement. Also his eyes look more like Tenma's from that era (kind of "beady")

Next I guessed that Tenma was not certain just how brilliant and powerful this robotic Tobio should be, which is why I felt they made him less intelligent, and more docile and mellow in personality.

Finally I supposed that he hadn't equipped "Jetto" with jets yet because he wanted to see how the robot responded to him, before "finishing" him.

My guess is that Tenma felt Cobalt wasn't as inquisitive and gutsy as Tobio, and that didn't satisfy him. All we saw of him (Tobio) was speeding along in a car that drove itself - looking confident and a tad reckless (notice how he went screeching around the corner once he reached the city}. So he decided to replicate his son exactly as he appeared when he died, and he loaded him up with massive brainpower and weaponry up the ying-yang

In the meantime Tenma deactivated Cobalt and put him in storage, and that's where he remained until he was thrown out when Ochanomizu decided to "clean house." Anyway . . . that was always my theory - and I had no idea of the manga stories back then.

[Little Brown Fox]

Sound reasoning! Although, Cobalt wasn't deactivated; he was just left in storage (in a sort of stasis, perhaps?), until Ochanomizu did the responsible thing by dumping the stuff they didn't need (and CLEARLY didn't even bother to look through!) straight into the ocean, because that's just good housekeeping. ( ) He woke up shortly after, and Ochanomizu didn't figure out he was in there until /after/ the mess was dumped. The rest of the episode deals with poor Cobalt trying to find his way back to the Ministry of Science (his "home"), and getting duped by some crooks along the way (he wised up and kicked their keisters close to the end). The episode ended with him and Atom tracking down the bomb he dropped, intended by the villains to be delivered to Atom (but Cobalt dropped it in a bakery, and picked up the wrong box by mistake). All of this could have been avoided if they had checked to see what was in storage /before/ they dumped it... but if they /had/, it wouldn't have been a very interesting episode, that's for sure!

Atom and Cobalt as Mario and Luigi? OMG YES; /totes/ drawing a picture of that! (and hey, it's /got/ to be better than Danny Devito and John Leguizamo, right? [lolwhatisspelling] )

[Toshio]

I still don't like Cobalt's story.
It feels quite horrible for Atom being left for dead and Dr. Ochanomizu trying to make a replacement.
It lacked determination since Atom suffered a lot in Ham Egg hands that was heartless leaving him for dead and trying to move on.
Yes, I do know that Cobalt got the ability to sense Atom, but it was still quite awful and plots like that are quite redundant nowadays.
Think about it: you're a robot who keep fighting for peace who never give up, then the person who you admire the most leave you for dead without trying to search for you when you're missing and damaged. It was still a lame excuse to not keep trying to find you anyway if that case happened in the series.
And if is not enough that person try to make a substitute when you're helpless and not being able to save yourself.
Even the fact that there was a bomb set to explode still don't justify a replacement which made the Dr. Ochanomizu from 2003 to be very determinated like a real father figure.
He knew that Earth was in danger, but at the same time he refused to just let Atom for dead and move on.
Also, in the 2003 series they wanted to expand Dr. Ochanomizu as a strong father figure, so it would not make sense for him leaving Atom for dead when he disappeared to make a possible replacement to save the world from danger.
A real father figure would never give up of his dear son who was missing, so it would not make sense for Cobalt being created with that expanded character development.
Even Dr. Tenma admits in the end that he was not suitable as a father and tells Atom to keep living with Dr. Ochanomizu.
Since the idea was to make Dr. Ochanomizu more like a father, the robot family would be completely pointless so they deserved the removal entirelly.
Though, Mayor Mani looked like a revamped version of Atom's Papa with a new and greedy role.
I don't think they should try a remake of that story and even Urasawa thought that adding Cobalt in Pluto would not make any sense.
Dr. Tenma dedicated himself to make a copy of Tobio and he don't wanted to make it as a half-assed prototype, but he still forgot that would necessary to input Tobio's memory in the robot so the copy would be perfect.
A good reason for Dr. Tenma creating a robot child would be more suitable if he had lost his own son and needed a replacement even if it was a robot copy, so the idea of Cobalt being the prototype while Tobio was still alive doesn't make sense.
It was a lame excuse for Dr. Tenma saying the robot Tobio was imperfect for not emulating Tobio entirelly and the fact of not being able to grow up was still natural for any child robot.
Also, the ability to sense Atom somewhere was even given to Uran in Pluto Mangá that she even felt his killing intention from afar, so Cobalt got completely outclassed in that plot.

[jeffbert]

In the manga, Cobalt was an attempt by Ochanomizu to build another Atom, since it appeared that Atom had run away. The H-bomb was ticking, & time was running out. In the B&W series, Cobalt's origin was that of a prototype that was only a stepping stone toward the final product: Atom. As such, was not likely to invest much, if any love in Cobalt, any more than he would in the many engineering documents that preceded Cobalt. If was so quick to discard , whom he initially loved, why should he have invested any in Cobalt? No more love for Cobalt, than the new mother has for the placenta or the umbilical cord, which are merely discarded as medical waste, while the infant himself is embraced and adored.

In the 1960s series, as it was intended to be ongoing from the start, and had already entered its 2nd season, adding new characters served to keep it fresh. It was clear that the writers were running on fumes, because several stories were retold, revised, & rewritten. They used many of the very same film clips from the original episodes, & added a few new ones, & even some from other episodes, in an attempt to keep the series alive. I could elaborate, but I am saving that for my book.

[Little Brown Fox]

Who said that Cobalt was a prototype while Tobio was still alive!? No one said that, or was even implying it!

All silliness aside, though; what Jeffbert said also applies. And he makes an interesting point, even if Cobalt's inclusion in the '60s anime ultimately doesn't make much sense, plot-wise (remember, they planned ahead for Atom's creation in the old series, with the deadline at around a full year to the day of the start of the project- where does poor ol' Jetto fit into this?).