Astro Boy 2003 Japan vs English?

[1magus]

Are there huge differences between the two?

[Fauna]

There's just the basic name-americanizationing, removal of death, changing of soundtrack, and removal of anything showing kids acting like such. For example, a large sequence featuring Uran singing in the forest with the animals was taken out of "The Birth of Pluto". In fact, there were a lot of songs that got cut...in "Franken", Al and the kid had their own song that I presume was taken out completely (I'd have to rewatch the english version). Among other things, Rock's mother died in "The Firebird", she didn't just give him to the psychic institute.

If anything, they turned it into a deathless Megaman. The only time I've understood their edits was in "Denkou", when there was a one-second moment of Denkou being pushed into a wall by the fat guy, because I'm sure some parents would complain about that.

So, to answer your question, there were a lot of differences, but nothing big enough to completely distort the plot.

[Dragonrider1227]

They gave Astro a raspy voice and a stupid catch phrase. "Let's Rocket." They also took out all his cute scenes. They turned him into Naruto >>

[jeffbert]

There was also the sequence change that gave us the Uran paradox, & the Rino Paradox.

[TasZero]

There are a lot of differences between the two. Most of them small, and most of them have already been mentioned. The ones that haven't been mentioned yet.

Different intro and ending songs and animation.
The episode Eternal Boy was replaced by a "recap" episode called "Dawn of the Techno-Revolution".
A resizing and cropping of the American version. I believe the Australian version looks the same as the Japanese version?

Australian version:

US version:

And some of the previously mentioned ones in more detail.
The order of the episodes was changed, and so we got some errors, such as Reno and Uran appearing before being introduced as well as Astro showing some of his powers before actually gaining them.
And the use of different names, such as Uran being called Zoran.

I am pretty sure there are more differences but it would take too much effort to list all the small ones.

[Fauna]

I hated that screen resizing! After I watched the original episodes, I realized that Uran is cut in half in "Micro Adventure", and all but Skunk's leg is cut out of a group shot in...uh...that episode with the brain-stealing machine.

That reminds me! Astro's teacher was originally named Ms. Midori, but she was changed to Ms. Maiyoki. (The pronounciation of 'Mai' changed several times in the english version. :rolleyes In the Jumbo episode, Midori didn't give a speech to Jumbo...she sang to him.
Ookii na, ookii na,
Roboto no Jyanbo...
And that's all I can remember for now.

[MightyAstro]

The episode Eternal Boy was replaced by a "recap" episode called "Dawn of the Techno-Revolution".

The ironic thing is that at one point in that recap episode a scene from Eternal Boy showing Astro's friend in his flying wheelchair or whatever it was is used.

Also it would have been nice if they'd put Dawn of the Techno-Revolution in its proper place chronologically on the English DVDs instead of at the very end.

[TasZero]

[QUOTE=TasZero;91260]
The episode Eternal Boy was replaced by a "recap" episode called "Dawn of the Techno-Revolution".

The ironic thing is that at one point in that recap episode a scene from Eternal Boy showing Astro's friend in his flying wheelchair or whatever it was is used.

Also it would have been nice if they'd put Dawn of the Techno-Revolution in its proper place chronologically on the English DVDs instead of at the very end.[/QUOTE]
Very ironic indeed. I watched the episode and had no idea who the boy in the wheelchair was... it took me quite a long time to even find out about the episode which was cut. It was also annoying that they put the episode at the end of the dvds... but also in the original order it contained scenes from some episodes that hadn't appeared yet.
Also, just as a little bit of trivia, in the end credits, its the only episodes whos name isn't there, the names of all the other episodes were in the credits.

[1magus]

Well what do you guys suggest I watch? Cause I don't understand Japanese and prob never will

[TasZero]

I honestly think you should just stick to English. I have never even been able to find the Japanese version.... except for 2 episodes posted on this site. The dvds are quite rare and bootleg versions anyway, and I have never seen one with English subtitles. The English episodes are easier to find on dvd and I also found a torrent where I got all mine from.