REVIEW: Astro Boy Film

Astro Boy Film

Directed by David Bower, Original manga By Osamu Tezuka

Film distributed 2009

·         Unlike the original origin of Astro Boy, Toby (the original boy Astro is based on), does not die from driving a future car but rather an incident with a rouge robot with a red evil core. In addition, Dr. Tenma is more open to accepting Astro as his son in this film as opposed to other adaptations of Astro Boy where he rejects Astro but still accepts him as his creation.

·         Past some key citizens of Metro City who are actual side characters from the original Tezuka works (including a cameo of Tezuka himself as a scientist in the film), the other added characters to the franchise look nothing like the style Tezuka made for the series. In addition, the technology and the looks for the robots look nothing like the sci-fi look that Tezuka set for his series originally.

·         Metro City, despite having a distinct Japanese feel to it, is not noted to being part of any country specifically in the film. There are references to New Jersey and other non-Japanese locations and culture making this adaptation unfittingly feels less Japanese and more International.

·         Astro is noted to keeping a shirt and pants for most of the film as opposed to only having underwear like his original comic. In addition, he doesn’t use his signature blaster gun hands and machine gun butt until later on in the film.

·         This film was notably co-created with a Hong Kong animation firm as opposed to a complete Japanese animation house.

·         The film specifically focuses on robotics for the majority of its sci-fi element whereas the original source material had cyborgs, plant people and aliens more regularly in the plot.

·         The classic style of Tezuka interacting with the audience is left out in this adaptation past his cameo as a scientist, which seems lacking in how Astro Boy comics and Tezuka’s style normally is in his animated films and manga. Normally, Tezuka would interact with the audience early on in his works to remind people that what they are reading is fictional, a personal trait of his works after he had experienced the aftereffects of World War II in Japan and how that affected the Japanese mindset.

·         The rules or robotics is made clear that robots cannot harm humans save for an ancient robot ZOG, which sets up irrational situations where robots try to get at humans by circumventing the rules.

·         Instead of the Heart power that Astro gained in the manga and his slow coming to becoming more like Toby, the Astro of the film immediately was given Toby’s memories from a strand of hair DNA and powered by the plot-driven Blue Core.

·         The forced tension of romance with Cora with Astro was unnecessary.

·         Overall, the movie was indeed enjoyable save for the forced friendships that Astro gained with the kids from the surface world. The political tone of the film also drew away from the manga origins where Tezuka focused on human suffering as his subject to his manga and/or how people overcome hardships on a regular basis. Overall though, I enjoyed the film.

Bibliography:

Astro Boy. Dir. David Bowers. Perf. Freddie Highmore, Nicholas Cage, Kristen Bell, Et.al. Sony, 2009. DVD.

REVIEW: Astro Boy Volume 1

Astro Boy Volume 1

By Osamu Tezuka

Published September 2002 by Dark Horse, first published 1952.

·         The origins of Astro Boy ironically do not show up in the first publications of Tezuka, instead jumping directly to the high fantasy sci-fi that is prominent for most of the story. Given that context, Astro Boy’s origins plays similarly to Batman’s in Detective Comics in that we know nothing about him in his original publication until much later.

·         Most of the first arc is dedicated to the “Hotdog Corps” arc where a loyal dog to a side character in Astro Boy’s mythos is turned into a cyborg man soldier to take over the moon with an entire corps of other cyborgs. This plays with 44, the dog once known as Pedro, always having an issue with loyalty given his stance against working with Astro Boy yet wanting loyalty for his former mater.

·         It is gruesome yet iconic for the dog cyborg 44 to be holding Pedro’s body in a non-horrified manner, giving a sense of macabre to the scene as Pedro is being intimate towards his fallen body.

·         The high fantasy end of this series stems from technology allowing robotics to allow people to the moon and other marvelous feats that is even today not in our grasp.

·         The plant people note that there are indeed aliens in this universe.

·         For some odd reason Tezuka notes that Astro himself is not allowed clothes in his origins.

·         The rushed part of Astro being discovered by the professor in a circus act mirrors that of Peter Parker’s introduction as a hero with him being a wrestler in his depute instead of a hero.

·         As one of the first manga series published, a lot of the narrative flows take its inspiration from the Golden and Silver Age style of high-end narrative and dynamic punches and poses to convey narrative as opposed to modern subtle methods that comics have adapted.

·         Though drawing heavily from Golden and Silver Age comics of America, the narrative of Astro Boy comics are not necessarily self contained and thus shows the prototype of story arcs which are commonly used in manga today.

·         Given the sci-fi nature of Astro Boy and other comics published in Japan around the same time, it can be seen why people labeled manga as sci-fi originally in its genesis.

·         It is noted that Astro Boy is the prototype for what would be called the “Shonen” genre of manga, which would have a demographics of adolescent to young adults much similar to how comics of the Golden Age were aimed towards the demographics of young boys.

·         It is to note that manga was originally printed on much cheaper and disposable paper than even its American counterparts, mirroring the fast-paced market of consumerism that Japan was emulating from the West.

·         Tezuka himself introduces story arcs in what is presented in the first volume’s tales, going as far as to critique with the characters troupes of narrative common in other media.

·         Overall, for one of the first manga ever published in a definition close to what we call “manga” today, Astro Boy stands the test of time as a great story enjoyable for all ages.

Bibliography:

Tezuka, Osamu, and Frederik L. Schodt. Astro Boy. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Manga, 2002. Print.