An Introduction to Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy

Mighty Atom Famous in Manga, TV Anime, and Movies

Aug 5, 2009

Astro Boy began as a supporting character called Mighty Atom. Since his 1951 debut, he has appeared in a hit manga, an iconic anime TV show, and now a CGI feature film.

Osamu Tezuka's most famous manga creation is undoubtedly Astro Boy, who started out as a shonen (boys') manga hero and, through an animated television series and movies, went on to become an international pop culutre icon.

The First Appearances of Osamu Tezuka's Mighty Atom

Osamu Tezuka had already been working as a manga artist for five years when he drew the story "Atom Taishi" ("Ambassador Atom" or "Captain Atom") in the April 1951 issue of Shonen, a manga geared toward young boys.

The character who would become Astro Boy only played a supporting role, but soon Tezuka made Tetsuwan Atomu (or "Mighty Atom") the star, and named the series after him. Mighty Atom had an electronic brain, rocket arms and legs, and even had machine guns that could fire from his rear end. Mighty Atom became a hit, and Tezuka continued to draw the series for the next eighteen years.

The premise behind Mighty Atom is as follows: in the year 2003, a government scientist called Dr. Tenma, grief-stricken by the loss of his son, Tobio, creates a robot version of his dead child. But when Tenma realizes that his robot son will never grow up, he casts him out.

The robot ends up being sold to a circus, where he performs as "Mighty Atom." He is rescued by Professor Ochanomizou, who gives Mighty Atom a new home and sends him to school to learn from Higeoyaji (or "Mr. Mustache"). Like Pinocchio, Mighty Atom longs to be a "real boy," and gets into many adventures.

In 1963, Mighty Atom became the first manga ever adapted into an animated television series in Japan. 139 black-and-white episodes were made by Osamu Tezuka's production company, and Tetsuwan Atomu became an even greater cultural phenomenon. The last episode of the series was shown in 1967, and Tezuka ended the manga the following year.

Meanwhile, Mighty Atom had a mark on American television executives. NBC decided to adapt the series for broadcast in the United States. Mighty Atom was renamed Astro Boy, and 104 of the Japanese episodes were rewritten and re-dubbed, and a new theme song added.

The success of Astro Boy in America was also great, but it came at a cost. English-language spin-off comics not drawn – or sometimes even licensed – by Osamu Tezuka cropped up between the 1960s and 1980s, and Tezuka himself was sometimes frustrated by the censorship imposed on the American localization of Astro Boy.

Tezuka felt that the quality of his early manga was uneven, and he often went back to clean up some of his originals when they were republished over the years. For one collection of the complete Astro Boy run, published by Akita Shoten, Tezuka even drew special introductions to the stories, with a manga version of himself – complete with his trademark beret and dark-rimmed glasses – interacting with Astro Boy and addressing readers.

Only in 2002 was the complete Astro Boy series made available in an English translation. Published by Dark Horse Comics, and translated by Japan expert Frederik L. Schodt (who had also served as Tezuka's personal translator), the twenty-three volume set of paperbacks used the Akita Shoten editions as their basis.

From the beginning of the Astro Boy television show, there had been interest in making an Astro Boy movie. But while a full-color Japanese animated film was released during the run of Tetsuwan Atomu, Hollywood backers, such as Osamu Tezuka's hero Walt Disney, failed to get an Astro Boy movie off the ground for years.

Finally, in the mid-2000s, work began on a computer-animated movie of Astro Boy, from Imagi Animation Studios, makers of the 2007 TMNT film. Featuring the voices of Freddie Highmore as Astro and Nicolas Cage as Dr. Tenma, among others, the new Astro Boy movie will be released on October 23, 2009.

While the life's work of Osamu Tezuka, called the "God of manga," is hardly limited to his shonen adventure-hero, Astro Boy has become Tezuka's most famous creation, thanks to a significant manga output and a ground-breaking television series. With Astro Boy's manga adventures now readily available in English, and a big-budget feature film about to be released, Astro Boy's international fame can only grow.

The copyright of the article An Introduction to Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy in Manga is owned by Luke Arnott. Permission to republish An Introduction to Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.