50th Anniversary Reviews of original anime

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

One thing that never struck me when I was watching the 60's Astroboy (Is Astroboy supposed to be one word or two ... I see it both ways) was the fact that he was almost naked. In the 1980's series, and in the Manga he is usually wearing school boy clothes and only sheds them when flying or fighting (sometimes his clothes tear or burn off). But except for a handfull of episodes (like trip to Mars where he is in a uniform) he only 'wears' his painted on briefs and boots. Actually in a few episodes (the first half of episode #1 anyway) he doesn't have the boots, just the soles of his feet have some 'tread'. In the Manga, Tezuka draws his feet both ways sometimes in boots, sometimes in 'sandals'. In the 2003 anime his boots seem to be part of his legs, the bottom panel folds inward to open up for his jet nozzles. In the 1960's anime he's drawn both without the boots and with them while flying. Also in the Manga he has jet's in his arms and sometimes flys powered by these alone, you never see the arm jets in the 60's anime (at least not in the US English dubed ones).

[AprilSeven]

A very astute observation - and I think I know why he's usually "unclothed" - that way they could reuse the cells of him in other episodes to save money!

I never thought of him as "naked" either - but I was a kid back then, and just figured "he's a robot, shiny, and his 'clothes' were painted on!"

Now that I've read some of the original manga, and see that he was usually dressed as a schoolboy, I had the same question you did. If you watch enough of the episodes, you will see certain "shots" of Astro that are repeated over and over - frequently images of him flying, listening with his enhanced hearing, or diving out of the sky. By having him dressed (or 'undressed') "the same" most of the time, they could make the most out of a limited budget (in fact, there's a behind the scenes segment that shows how they store the cells that are reused frequently.)

I can't explain the boots on/off -- that's just plain inconsistent. In the 80's version, they have a character from the robot circus give him the boots (which somehow miraculously survive all that jetfire! )

I also can't explain the lack of arm jets in the 60's anime (unless again it was to simplify the animation by always having him fly the same way).

Back to the boots - there is an episode in the 60's that showed how his (booted) foot collapsed inward and became a jet. There's a thread on here where I posted screen caps of that whole procedure!

As for his name . . . The title on the anime says Astro Boy - two words. In that series, they never called him "Astro" - always "Astro Boy" - so I think it became an "unofficial" second way to spell his name (I questioned why this site uses that spelling, in fact:lol

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

In the 1983 anime Astro IS seen flying with his arm jets. In fact in the episode of the robot train his leg jets become disabled and he has to use his arm jets, which means he can't push the train when it gets stuck (guess he didn't think to fly backwards or just lean his back against the train). In the 2003 series and the 2009 movie, his arm jets are replaced with phaser cannons (they are NOT lasers, maybe particle beams???).

BTW, In the story I put up on the fan creations part of this site I made his arm weapon an IR laser because I was trying to imagine Atom being built today with today's technology (even though some of the tech I used was very theoretical, such as the He3 fusion reactor or his quantom computer 'brain'.) I also imagined his hip guns as Gatling guns shooting depleted uranium shells, though he doesn't use them in the story, though I might add that in a future submission. (Such a weapon DOES exist and is part of the A10 Warthog aircraft that can kill tanks in a strafing run.)

[jeffbert]

[QUOTE=jeffbert;205883][QUOTE=Toshio;205865]
"Ferno" for Atlas?
You can't be serious...

The episode was retitled DON TAY'S INFERNO, a pun on Dante's Inferno. While it is true that the kids would not get it, it is funny.

As Oddball said, "can the negative waves, Moriarity, can the negative waves." [/QUOTE]

If you want to talk bad puns go to Hulu and watch some of the old Rocky and Bullwinkle shows. Some of the names they came up with are real bad. Like Bullwinkles alamatta "What'samatter-U". There was this line about a girl football team and Bullwinkle asks "How do you play with girls?" and Rocky says "I guess this IS a kids tv show".

Fred Ladd had nothing on Jay Ward![/QUOTE]
I just finished the entire series on Netflix streaming; I totally agree; the humor was great. The show offered something for everyone: goofy characters for kids & humor for adults. Too bad the movie lacked cliffhanger endings; it would have been better with them & FRACTURED FAIRY TAILS.

Ooops, I forgot to mention that in Atlas, Atlas was able to generate very high temperatures; thus, DON TAY'S INFERNO was particularly apt as a title.

[racoonangel]

I love astro boy seriens it's amazing sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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