U.S. has little love for Astro Boy

[F-Man]

Even Tezuka made some use of Beethoven and Strauss (Richard) during Astro's creation scenes in the first two Animes. (Anybody know what he used for Mars?).

The very classical "Happy Birthday to You." :d oh:

[Astrogirl500]

I vote for 2003 series!!! The best version for me!

[ClassicGameGuys]

Thats weird. I wore my Astro Boy shirt to my highschool yesterday [yup we have no dress code] and I received an astonishing amount of comments on it from even non anime fans. 1 dude I never met before even approached me and asked if I know about the Gameboy Advance game since it is pretty sweet.
Also, I live in Canada.

[Earthshine]

@Earthshine: Won't lie, I was pretty surprised to hear that. Considering how much Atom is honored in Japan and how significant he is, I would have imagined that Atom would have at least been in the hands of many more Japanese kids today. Although I do ask; are you sure you're referring to everything Tezuka has done? I don't think it would be fair to assume that Black Jack or Phoenix are anywhere near conventional stories.

Also, you did outline a major difference between Superman and Atom; Superman is still receiving lots of content on a regular basis worldwide and as such, is kept relevant. Outside of Japan, Atom has not. This means that many western (at least English) kids of today will likely not only not care about Atom (or Tezuka in general), but may not even know him. That's why Tezuka's relevance has fallen significantly over the past few decades.

I was mostly referring to what I know personally. I studied Japanese for over 5 years and as such spent a lot of time immersing myself in the culture and even found myself a job within the all girl's school here in my city named Mukogawa Ft. Wright, it's a school for Japanese studying English in quarter length periods.

My job entailed me to tutor them in their English as well as coach them on various cultural details as a live-in resident. Spending months on end with numerous native Japanese will let you see a window into a world you might never be able to see on a regular basis.

Conversations of anime and manga were inevitable. Having been a fan of Astro Boy surprised many of my 'students' but then again they were surprised that manga was even here in the US.

Of the hundred + people that I tutored there was only maybe 2 that honestly knew anything about Astro Boy beyond what was common knowledge in the culture of Japan (his origins, his family and basic stats).

Most of the girls were not entirely interested in manga and anime in general, but those that did most certainly would more than likely read something that was current than Tezuka anything.

This does not mean necessarily that they had no respect for Tezuka and the series in which he brought into the world. Every one of them DID know who Tezuka was and all of them had immense respect for him. Most of these girls were 18 to 23 years old back in 2009.

If my memory serves me right many of these girls DID admit that they had read Astro Boy at some point in the life when they were small, but as with many things that we read when we are little we don't usually pursue it as a hobby up to a certain age. And often times just forget everything that has anything to do with it.

I'm not the best person to reference though when it comes to cultural significance in Japan to Japanese. If I were talking about Superman (as a huge DC comic fan) I could give numerous examples as to how significant his existence has been. That and I'm afraid that he is more popular and known the world over (again probably a bad example on my part in the above post).

If Astro Boy had more exposure the world over and more availability in Japan, then he would probably have more fans. There are numerous theories I could give as to why older Japanese close to my age (25 now) do not have much of an interest. My generation was born after the 1980s broadcast in Japan and Japan does not repeat shows on television so once a series is aired, it's DONE except for a few special events. So seeing the anime then would have been very hard for the average Japanese kid at that time, making an interest beyond books perhaps a little hard.

There is absolutely no positive truth what-so-ever in the above comment though and is just speculation on my part, I could be very wrong.

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

Yet there MUST be a market for the DVD's of the Tetsuwan Atom series from the 60's and 80's in Japan. I wonder how well they sell there, and what the age group of the buyers are.

[Earthshine]

I don't doubt that there IS a market for Astro Boy in Japan, it's just not as large as it probably could be. The demand for Astro Boy in Japan is larger than it is anywhere in the world so it makes sense that there does exist a market.

Maybe I was a little confusing with my posts. I'm not saying that there is NO MARKET or NO INTEREST in Japan, just that there is a lower interest then we might expect.

[Dragonrider1227]

I think Astro's market it mostly nostalgics now. Considering I think the last thing they did with Astro is a series of car tire ads.

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

Astro as the Michelin man?

[AprilSeven]

And here, once again, I have to beg the value of hyper-scrutiny over what is considered copyright infringement.

If, instead of each of us fertivly trying to put together collections, and finding ways to understand what is being said in Japanese versions of anime and manga, we could freely use the internet to its full potential, I believe we could -- no, WOULD be expanding Astro's popularity.

I had three VHS tapes I purchased from the RightStuf back in the late 80's. Now I have boxed sets of all three anime series (including the Japanese "89"), all of Urasawa's Pluto manga, Atomcat, the 2003 manga, the 2009 movie and movie manga, and books 1-3 and 10 of the Dark Horse manga.

Why? Because I was able to watch episodes that Winged Mushroom of Doom posted on youtube, and were linked to here. Oh, yes, I also started reading Pluto online. But guess what - I PURCHASED A WHOLE BUNCH OF STUFF because I wanted to have it PERMENANTLY and yes, also to support Tezuka Pro ('cause it IS the right thing to do!)

But the fact that I could explore what was out there - and for a time there were fantastic fan-made videos that increased the "longevity" of Astro being "current" -- but now that it's all been pulled down, and repressed . . .we are only making it easier for people to forget.

My deepest wish is for Tezuka Pro to WORK WITH US to help expand Astro/Atom's popularity (maybe THEY can convince Sony to "back off" and let the fandom become an important part of the "marketing department")

Here's an idea . . . could we create a thread - in our multilingual forum, maybe? Where we could write what we are wishing for - and then translate it - perhaps through Google, and reviewed by our Japanese-fluent members, and then send them an email with a link so they can see what we have going on here, and how we only want to GROW the world of

What do you guys think?

[toxicXheart]

Thats weird. I wore my Astro Boy shirt to my highschool yesterday [yup we have no dress code] and I received an astonishing amount of comments on it from even non anime fans. 1 dude I never met before even approached me and asked if I know about the Gameboy Advance game since it is pretty sweet.
Also, I live in Canada.

See you live in Canada people seem nicer up there. I'm in the States and I wore an Astro shirt back in high school; people laughed, the only people that liked it were my friends and a few people that were "goth"