Astro Boy Is Weak In The USA

[Prettywitchiusaka]

I feel your average American audience doesn't know what to do with Astro. At first glance he looks like a cutesy little kid show until you realize that it involves a child DYING in a car crash. Too violent for little kids, too cutesy looking for usual anime fans.

Doesn't help that heavy censorship laws in America prevent us from even seeing teh more tragic side of Astro's origin.

Tough I don't know, I think if you gave Astro Boy as a reccomendation to someone and they took that reccomendation, they'd probably like it. After all, characters like Astro and Zoran/Uran are very cute in their own right, and are made very likeable. Heck, I could even picture Zoran/Uran being marketed rather heavily as a major cuteness symbol if given the right tools.

[Dragonrider1227]

It's not the censorship laws so much as their insistence of selling Astro to an audience too young for it. Maybe in Japan kids under 10 like Astro but there's that culture clash again. Here, that doesn't work. Yet at the same time, much more violent anime gets dubbed and made popular among anime fans. Why? They know who to market them to. You don't see people trying to sell Soul Eater or Death Note on Kids WB. As I've said before; if we could get someone like Funimation to dub Astro Boy and run it on their channel, then we could probably get somewhere.

[Prettywitchiusaka]

Yeah; I'd love it if Funi picked up Astro Boy. That would be SO awesome! The problem comes from three things as I see it;

First, Funimation actually has to have interest in licensing the series. Now don't get me wrong, I like Funimation, and I think that teh people in charge of teh company are defenitely fans of teh medium. The problem is that they need to have interest in licensing something like Astro Boy, for both personal and economic reasons like with everything else they license. After all, they are still a company. Now to be fair, they have been known for licensing anime series that weren't so successful (such as Birdy the Mighty), regardless of their popularity or lack of with American audiences. But again, Funimation is a business first and foremost; it makes sense that they would either license or save anime that would bring them in lots of money.

Second, Funimation has to be aware that there IS an audience out there for Astro Boy. Now obviously there is, but they need to be aware of that audience if they're going to market it properly.

And Third, they'd have to deal with Sony for the rights. Yes, I think most people on here have taken their shots at Sony over the years for the 03 series dub, but Sony DID collaberate with Tezuka Production to create the series. If anything, I don't think handing over a co-production to another company like Funimation would be an easy task.

[F-Man]

And Third, they'd have to deal with Sony for the rights. Yes, I think most people on here have taken their shots at Sony over the years for the 03 series dub, but Sony DID collaberate with Tezuka Production to create the series. If anything, I don't think handing over a co-production to another company like Funimation would be an easy task.

Not only that, but I think Sony has worldwide rights. They definitely do in France, Korea and Japan. Anyone thinking about Funimation picking up the series should stop holding any hopes.

[Prettywitchiusaka]

[QUOTE=Prettywitchiusaka;194861]And Third, they'd have to deal with Sony for the rights. Yes, I think most people on here have taken their shots at Sony over the years for the 03 series dub, but Sony DID collaberate with Tezuka Production to create the series. If anything, I don't think handing over a co-production to another company like Funimation would be an easy task.

Not only that, but I think Sony has worldwide rights. They definitely do in France, Korea and Japan. Anyone thinking about Funimation picking up the series should stop holding any hopes.[/QUOTE]

To be honest, I'm not really sure if I think they'd ever get the license, but it ure would be cool if they did.

[Higeoyaji]

Ah, this is a very interesting topic. I wish this wasn't true but unfortunately it is. I'm almost 41 now, I teach an English class at a high school to kids in either their Sophomore or Junior years. I'd prefer not to get to personal, but my father was a Japanese immigrant who came to the US in 1967. He wanted to work in animation like Tezuka, which unfortunately didn't work out.

He showed me all of these Japanese cartoons and most of them were by Tezuka.(Excluding Speed Racer, and Tetsujiin 28. Those are two off of my head that I can remember that weren't made by him.) I didn't get too into Astro Boy until I was around 9 or 10 when the first color series came on television. At that age I wasn't bothered by the English dub. Today I own the box set to this series and every time I watch it I have to watch it so that it's the Japanese dub with English subtitles. But the point of this part is that I loved this series as a child and I've had knowledge of Japanese Anime for pretty much my whole life.

I've actually had conversations with students of mine who are into anime. Most of the time I hear that they're into shows like Bleach, Naruto, Pokemon, Dragonball, and many others. I know all of these shows, I can't say I like all of them but I know of them. Of course there are others like Naruto which I have never heard of but don't have time to watch. When I mention older anime series, half of the time the students know of Astro Boy but never watched it. (Or they're more familiar with the 09 movie.) Other times they never heard of it, or know of it, but know anything about it. Most of the time they don't even know what I'm talking about when I mention Metropolis, Phoenix, or Buddha, they have no clue what I'm talking about when I say these names. (Some know about Kimba the White lion. But I mostly hear "Oh, my mom/dad used to watch that!" I also get a little disappointed when I mention Castle in the Sky,Ponyo,or Akira even and they don't know those either.)

I know this is mainly American youth that I'm talking about, but to me this does show that not a lot of people like Tezuka's works, or aren't even aware of it. To me this is a bit sad because there are a lot of anime fans in America that don't even know who Tezuka is or how much of an impact he had on anime and manga. These kids don't even know who the God of Manga is! Anime might not have even existed outside of Japan if it weren't for people like Tezuka.

In my personal opinion, I think it's important that Western anime audiences are more aware of Osamu's works and hopefully appreciate all of the hard work he did over the years.

@Prettywitchiusaka
You know the word "the" is spelled T-H-E, correct? It's not T-E-H. Just thought I'd let you know.

[Prettywitchiusaka]

(laughs) Yeah, I know. But I've gotten so used to it, it's kind of hard to stop in terms of posts.

Actually, you know what I think might help Astro Boy; is if both the manga (along with other Tezuka titles) were much more easily avaliable in stores. This might just apply to me because I live in Canada, but it kind of saddens me that I can go to ANY of my local bookstores and not find Astro Boy manga save for a few select locations. Heck, I can't even find the Pluto manga if you can believe it.

I don't know how much that would help, but if the books were more easily purchasable (along with the right marketing), it might do something for both Tezuka's image, and Astro Boy's image in North America.

[AprilSeven]

@Prettywitchiusaka - I totally agree with you - if the works were more readily available, more people would check them out, just out of curiosity (and I live in the US, it's the same here).

The sad truth is that between poor marketing, overly aggressive copyright laws, and lack of availability to the masses, Tezuka's almost been relegated to the dying or forgotten parts of our culture. Young people don't realize what they are missing - and worse yet - have the idea that they don't "need" what Tezuka's works offered.

Still, as the world becomes more and more polarized, I can't help but believe Astro will finally have a well-deserved resurgence. I watch the 1980's series (never saw it back then) and I'm in shock at how prescient Dr. Tezuka was (right on down to an iPad Shibugaki was watching in Uran's Twin)

In the meantime, places like this forum are important to keep his works alive and thriving as best we can.

[Prettywitchiusaka]

Really? Darn, I was hoping to have more luck finding Astro Boy comics when I go to teh states next. Oh well...I guess my next best bet is looking around a few comic book shops I know.

I agree, I think Tezuka does have a place in the Western anime community, it's just that his work needs more exposure. At the same time though, I don't think that his work should be over-exposed to the point where people just get sick of hearing his name. After all, Tezulka did A LOT for the community, and he should at least be well-known or respected at the very least. But let's face it, people tend to get very cynical when it comes to over-exposure towards something, and with cynisism comes detractors (of the snobby kind).

Sometimes, it's justified. Other times, not so much.

[jeffbert]

Not only Tezuka, but just about anything from the 60s (or any older generation); I recall a SIMPSONS in which the fabulous Lincoln Futura (that George Barris had modified for the Batman series) was featured, & Homer says "The Batmobile" & Bart says, something like that's not the Batmobile!

Kids have no idea that the world was just fine, long before they came along! They cannot imagine a world without them as the central figures in it. So, it is not surprising that they know nothing of what went on before they were born.