Favorite Minor Characters

[tailz]

In that case I'm adding Cobalt and Chi-tan to my list. X3

same here.

Cobalt does appear in quite a few episodes, and sometimes even the star. He's a little more like a secondary character than a minor.

[Little Brown Fox]

Yeah, but they mentioned him in the context of "minor", and he's like, my favorite character, so... he goes on my list, at least; I don't care what anyone else says (besides, for the most part he is a very minor character in the sense that he hardly ever does anything except for show up and maybe have a few lines, if he's lucky- there are even manga stories where he appears and says and does absolutely nothing at all; he's just there).

[tailz]

Yeah, but they mentioned him in the context of "minor", and he's like, my favorite character, so... he goes on my list, at least; I don't care what anyone else says (besides, for the most part he is a very minor character in the sense that he hardly ever does anything except for show up and maybe have a few lines, if he's lucky- there are even manga stories where he appears and says and does absolutely nothing at all; he's just there).

lol. Yeah, that's true. I'm pretty sure it was the same for Chi-tan. I wonder why they hardly ever showed Cobalt? Did Tezuka forget about him or something?

[jeffbert]

I too, am perplexed as to why Cobalt is absent from certain episodes in which the rest of the family appear. I am just now thinking that they may have placed a limit on the number of characters who appear in any given episode-- that is, in anything other than background appearances. I need to take a closer look at a few while considering this. It may be that certain animators were primarily responsible for certain characters. If so, then that may explain why Cobalt is absent. Of course, this is pure speculation. Unfortunately, when I note a character's appearance in an episode, I do not usually note whether he appears in a major way.

[Little Brown Fox]

It's not just in the anime that this occurs, though. He sometimes appears in the manga like this- and there probably are stories in the manga where he doesn't show up at all (I've seen instances where he appears for the first half, but then disappears and fails to show up again when the story reaches its conclusion- Uran's debut is notable for this).

[Earthshine]

I think it's because there is and was a limit to what Cobalt and Chi-tan could do as a whole to progress stories; the manga and the anime was about Astro Boy after all. It's also unfortunate that Dr. Tezuka got really stressed when dealing with the Astro Boy franchise in the later episodes of the anime and manga, and probably was just losing creativity when it came to the series as a whole. It could very well be that he just had no drive to draw them or have them do anything other than just exist as siblings for Atom to instill an empathy from his children readers to Atom. That's why his parents were created after all - to show his readers that Atom had a family just like them and then with Uran, Cobalt and Chi-tan a family with siblings.

I could be wrong though, I'm just musing.

[tailz]

That could be the reason why. Or just because they never had enough time to put Cobalt and Chi-tan in there. They mostly showed Uran and Atom's parents most of the time. I was always wondering "okay, so Uran and Atom's parents are there, where's Cobalt?" (Didn't know who Chi-tan was at the time, until I saw a picture of him.)

Btw, does anyone remember if Cobalt was in the Christmas episode? (I forgot, since it's been soo long since I watched. I think he was. )

[Sporkia]

I don't recall him being in any Christmas episodes. But if I'm wrong, someone needs to direct me to it immediately.

[Little Brown Fox]

He wasn't; I watched it not terribly long ago. It was after he first appeared in the English sequence, but the episodes aren't actually in their proper sequence when it comes to the English dub, so... The rest of Atom's family is in it.

[jeffbert]

Another thing to consider is that Tezuka was still drawing maga, still involved with other anime. W3 ran between episodes 122 & 173; Jungle Emperor between 136 & 183; Jungle Emperor II immediately after that & occasionally making movies. The old Tezuka site listed titles by date, it would make it easy to see where Tezuka's energy was devoted.

Pictures at an Exhibition: 11/1966

Check this link: http://web.archive.org/web/20080606050058/http://en.tezuka.co.jp/manga/sakuhin/chronological/1965.html

Though it appears he concentrated on Mighty Atom manga during the 3rd & 4th season of the B&W animated series, I did check the other categories & noted that he was indeed very busy.

I think it is fair to introduce recurring characters then have them play mostly background roles, & only occasionally have them more involved.