AstroBoy Online Forums

(Wow, so I've fallen back into this fandom again. I CAN'T ESCAPE ASTRO BOY)

Anyway, I just had a logistic question for those more versed in Astro Boy than I - is there any greater authority that the Ministry of Science, specifically the Head Minister, reports to? Such as someone in the government? Or are they an independent science organization?

I ask because rewatching the 2003 series (and discovering the Japanese subbed version) Tenma basically got to throw a lot of money into the Astro Boy project, then took said robot home to raise him while neglecting his minister duties. Kind of wonder if there's someone around who could have ordered Tenma to get back to his actual job, even if Tenma would have just ignored them anyway.

(Although it's kind of funny to think that the real issue is that pretty much no one dares to call Tenma out on his actions, as he naturally intimidates anyone in a position of authority higher than him)

I don't think it was ever explained whether the MOS was a government agency, a private corporation, or an independent organization. I would assume it was government funded. IIRC it was mentioned in the 2003 series that Tenma managed to keep Atom's details secret, (although Dr. O'Shay managed to uncover the data). In some versions of Atom's creation story, Tenma worked totally in secret (using assistants he'd probably sworn to secrecy). He must have done some embezzling of funds! In the short film 'The secret of Atom's birth', he managed to keep one step ahead of the law while he quickly put his plan together.

I saw the MOS as being sort of like NASA being a government agency where the "minister of science" would be the equivalent of the "NASA administrator" who reports directly to the person running the country (president, prime minister etc) while being independent enough to focus on certain projects. However because we simply do not know EXACTLY what the dynamics are surrounding MOS I think it is safe to headcanon what you will.

Whatever MOS is exactly it certainly has A LOT of power, and a lot of money, much more than NASA probably (which I think the budget for NASA is around 15 billion), so it makes perfect sense why Tenma would be so secretive about Atom's creation when dealing with the government. But having it so strongly tied to the government also provides a lot of potential problems that Tezuka just did not explore so we really just do not know.

It opens up a lot of potential for fanfic!

~EDIT~

Gilies Legardinier's Astro Boy that Fauna is sharing actually goes into a little more detail about MOS (the Centre of Research in this series) than what we see in anime or manga canon, such as it having an advanced security team reminiscent of a possible government branch. This of course is just one version and one representation of the series but it does add a little more richness than what we have seen with the animes and manga.

Cool. I did headcanon it as being something like NASA, with them answering to someone in high authority, who's probably also busy enough that Tenma could get away with embezzlement and neglecting his duties, for the short-term at least (It was stated to have been about six months between finishing Astro and Tenma destroying his research, and probably a few more months before that creating him in secrecy). Anyone who came to check up on him probably got condescended to and confused by terms way too technical to understand.

There also seems to be some liberties granted to the Ministry because of their work. (Tenma's antics aside, Dr. O'Shay also got away with blacking out the entire city. So I figured they had to be sanctioned by someone pretty high up to ultimately get away with that, even if O'Shay did seem to be operating on "Better to ask forgiveness than permission"). So yeah, I'm going with government-sanctioned.

*remembers Fauna's review of the Now!Comics* Now this I have to see. *goes to check out the translations*

Come to think of it though, in the 2003 version Tenma must have created Astro in secret because when Dr. O'Shay reactivated him and showed him off (as his OWN creation, or so it seemed) it was the first time that anybody else had ever seen Astro. Tenma kept 'Tobio' to himself from the time he was created till the moment Tenma deactivated him. (Although at some point in the Japanese version O'Shay had to keep someone from mentioning Tenma's name in front of Astro, he didn't want him to know about his actual creator at that point in time.)

Actually yes, the Japanese subs I watched specifically stated that Astro's existence was unknown by the rest of the world when he was just Tenma's son - only with O'Shay reactivating him did he come to the public's attention. It's probably also why it's kind of treated as a big deal that mustached police guy figured out that O'Shay didn't build Astro in the second episode - that fact was supposed to be way top secret.

It almost makes me wonder, had Tenma NOT gone off the deep end and deactivated Astro, how long he could have kept up the charade of a happy life with his robot son... someone was probably going to come knocking on his door asking questions eventually (but then, I doubt Tenma was in much of a mindset to be thinking that far ahead).

As a kid, I just theorized that the Ministry of Science was a government department. Out in my country, we have select representatives like the Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Foreign Affairs (i.e. our current science minister); I always assumed the ministers in Astro Boy were department-elected representatives in charge of furthering that department.

I think it's also up for interpretation, too. The MOS is government related to an extent (heck, the 1980s NOW! Comics series had the MOS have ties to the national military), so each series usually has some sort of government tie.