Astro Boy Reboot (Future animated series)

[Little Brown Fox]

Naw. I suppose the fact that my mom and brother were there (and did not like it, either; and that I was the only one that wanted to see it, iirc) could have made my experience inordinately terrible, moreso than if I had seen it alone. I've never actually done that in a theater before; but I think I have a bad habit of talking about it while watching the film, too... so idk how I'd handle myself. I'd like to do it someday, though; I can't drive myself anywhere, but maybe it could be arranged where whoever took me could see a movie that they wanted to watch, too... Or maybe someday I can make friends with similar interests that I can talk to irl and that can drive. :T

Anyway. Yeah, I'm a little bit self-conscious about the whole Astro Boy thing, dunno why. Maybe because of how weird it I feel it must seem to an outsider... some of the things that didn't bother me a few years ago (but sort of do now), like his lack of clothes thing, seem like they'd put people off of the series. Not to mention the depressing elements, as you so mentioned.

[Dragonrider1227]

I have similar issues getting to places on my own. I've been to a movie theater on my own but I wouldn't be able to if it wasn't within the bus route. Also yes, just having others watch something with you can effect your enjoyment of it. For me, just seeing others respond to something can effect it. I saw Man of Steel in theaters on my own and really enjoyed it but then my sisters constantly complained about it hurting my re-watch enjoyment of it. :/

So am I. Probably for the same reasons. I've been going to anime conventions since 2008 and started sending AMVs to them this year and it's terribly self-conscious feeling like I'm practically the only Astro Boy fan there, but pretty much the only one doing Astro Boy AMVs. Gives me this "Outcast among outcasts" feeling.

I think for most anime fans, the issue comes from its style. It's a difficult one to categorize with modern animes. It looks like some cutesy Fleischer cartoon making it hard to sell to the older anime crowd but darker than most children's anime today so it's hard to sell to them. Most also probably don't even know about the more modernized 2003 version since it was terribly marketed so most probably automatically think of the 60s series which obviously hasn't aged well visually. And yeah, the fact it looks like he's in his underwear most of the time probably doesn't help :/

[Little Brown Fox]

I'm not sure if the fact that he's technically naked makes that better or worse. :T

Anyways, any version is hard to sell for one reason or another. I hope this one does well; it looks rather different, but not bad at all, to me. An interesting style that I can't wait to see more examples of... if they ever get around to showing us! :<

[Dragonrider1227]

I know, right? I especially want to know if other characters will be in this. One of my pet peeves about the movie was how Tezuka had so many characters all ready in his animes and manga, and while a few made it in, they decided to make a bunch of new and frankly, forgettable characters.

[Little Brown Fox]

Given that of the names mentioned, none except Astro's are familiar, I do not have much hope... unless these are recycled designs. Idk why they would do that, but not keep the names, or at least some semblance of the names, though. LAB sets a little bit of a precedent for this, though, so we'll see...

[Shiyonasan]

Given that of the names mentioned, none except Astro's are familiar, [...]

There's also Atlas, who was confirmed on May 11 (or technically May 16, if you want to count AprilSeven asking Shibuya Productions if the red silhouette image is Atlas).

http://www.astroboy-online.com/forums/showthread.php?p=233324#post233324
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=843829855702218&id=277251422360067

Talking general info we know about so far, there really hasn't been much new news about ABR in a while, and unfortunately, there probably won't be for a while. Shibuya Productions and its president have been focusing heavily on Shenmue III since it was revealed last month at E3, at least from what I can tell on their social media pages. I suppose it's to be expected, considering it's the highest-ever funded game on Kickstarter and has a lot of online media attention right now.

Back to ABR though, it's honestly staggering how slow news has come out about this series since its announcement. We're 13 months removed from when it was first announced, and while we do have quite a bit of info on it, there's much left to be desired.

I asked other members in the ABO Skype meeting last month when they thought ABR was going to be released; most of them guessed 2016. I agree with them, though I wouldn't be surprised if we had to wait until 2017. It's weird to say this, but I hope that we get at least one new piece of info on this series before the end of the year. Time will tell I suppose.

[Little Brown Fox]

Oh dear, I had no idea that they had any kind of connection to video games. That title sounds familiar; I'm afraid I wouldn't know exactly what it is, anyway, though. And I forgot about Atlas (probably because I don't care about him as much, and know very little about this particular incarnation other than he seems to be yet another antagonistic clone of some sort, and that he exists at all). :T

Ah, gee... but the date that was listed was 2015... I really hope they at least give us something before the end of the year, as well. Maybe another trailer; promotional artwork; character concepts; please, I'm desperate... Maybe they'll give us something as a Christmas/holiday present, ahaha... I hope that they know that we're talking about it at all; I think that companies tend to respond to fandom buzz and/or demand, sometimes. :T

[Dragonrider1227]

Given that of the names mentioned, none except Astro's are familiar, I do not have much hope... unless these are recycled designs. Idk why they would do that, but not keep the names, or at least some semblance of the names, though. LAB sets a little bit of a precedent for this, though, so we'll see...

Well, they could be renamed. How many names have Dr. Ochanomizu and Mr. Mustachio had? I don't think such things are necessary nowadays but some people keep doing it

[Little Brown Fox]

Yeah, but these two (I can't remember what they were called, actually, but it was nothing familiar) were stated to be Astro's human friends. Some of Astro's school friends, barring the usual exception of Kenichi, usually received names rather different from their original names (again, except for Kenichi, for whom it was easy enough to change into "Ken" or "Kennedy"). However, these names were still, well, recognizable as names. These names sound, ah, foreign, if I'm remembering correctly... not to say they aren't real names, but I wouldn't know if they were or not, because I cannot recognize the language. Again, this is iirc.

Now, with such unusual names... idk, it just seems slightly unlikely that these may be some of his old school friends from series' past. They're probably new characters, like Mitchy and and that other girl whose name I can't remember, from LAB. (Might've spelled Mitchi's name wrong; truthfully I cannot remember and to me, it matters very little.)

[Dragonrider1227]

Ah, I see what you mean. The changed names are usually variations of their Japanese ones. Kenichi becomes Kennedy, Ochanomizu becomes O'Shay, in the 80s version Tobio became Toby, On the other hand if you gave me a list of the 2003 dub names with no context, I'd see the name "Zoron" and have no idea who THAT was supposed to be so you're probably right but you never know.