Originally posted by Atoman@Apr 2 2005, 05:10 PM
Hi Astro forever,
It might be a jail room, but to me since he was insane, he was probably in a mental institution, the room did look a bit too nice for your average jail cell.
I'm an adult in my 30's and I cried too at the last episode and others in the 60's 80's and recent series, he's the most emotional cartoon character ranging the whole spectrum of human emotions. The American team that worked on the new series in Japan said it seemed like and adult show and asked the Japanese staff members: "Why does a cartoon show have to be so tragic, sad and serious?" The Japanese reply was: "Because he's Astro. He's always been that way".
So don't be ashamed of a good cry with this and other Tezuka shows. There're adult shows too. They show them all in prime time in Japan.
For some reason I already felt a bit silly to like Astro so much when I was 7 or 8. I guess I couldn't find any logical reason and that made me feel crazy! :huh:
Now, see, I'm still hiding the fact that I record the episodes each day these days...

h34r: Thanks to those silent DVD recorders, nobody here noticed because I can't see myself explaining why I am recording a cartoon on a children network!

I look already strange enough since I am up earlier than usual in the morning!

It's not so much that I am ashamed now, it's more that I don't know if I could really explain what you just told me to somebody who never watched the show in its childhood... I'm not sure I'd be understood!

But awwwwwwwwwwww he's so cute and it's a pleasure to see him again!

I've yet to cry but I just watched the "Save the classmate" episode and that moved something inside me! I can't believe that all those years passed and I still remembered some sequences almost perfectly, and I think I had seen it maybe twice in my life...
And I too thought the room looked to nice for a jail cell... That makes me feel better I guess because I couldn't imagine Astro's father in jail... I forgave him too!
One thing that so far seems different to me in both color series is the "moral"... I mean in both series it's about how everybody should be equal, but *so far* I feel that the 80's message was more subtle and effective, like in that school epidose I've just seen... Astro didn't say to his classmates "hey we are all equals, robots should have the same rights and if you knew me you'd find out what's really inside me". He just let his actions speak for themselves. So I don't know if it's the translation, but I've heard O'Shay or Astro say openly something like that so often that it bugs me... It seems unnecessary to me. But then again I haven't watched all the episodes...