Osamu Moet Moso (Astro Boy artwork)

[Little Brown Fox]

Gah, a DS case cover! Not sure if that's official, but it sure is neat. Too bad that it probably won't work on the modern models... I might have seen that before, along with little baggie-type things (like the little pencil case bags some of us might have used in school way back when), as well as what might have been a proper pencil case. I'm not sure, though; it might have been one of these...

As for what makes Astro look more mature, in the manga itself it was partly his stature and bearing. In both the manga and this little collectors' card, it's the eyebrows.

It's too bad that no one can find more of that Mars postcard; I hadn't even known that a version like that had been made! Of course, I didn't know about the Return of Atom look either, until I found it by accident in an image search! (I can't remember my search terms for the life of me; I feel like it was when I looked up Jetter Mars in Japanese, though. Found some other cool stuff, too.)

[CommanderEVE]

Gah, a DS case cover! Not sure if that's official, but it sure is neat.

It most likely is not official. They may have been selling the ‘stickers’ in the places they were showcasing art.

As for what makes Astro look more mature, in the manga itself it was partly his stature and bearing. In both the manga and this little collectors' card, it's the eyebrows.

Indeed. I just compared the eyebrows from both Astro’s. Also, Tezuka talks about Astro's height changes here:

click for spoiler

It's too bad that no one can find more of that Mars postcard.

Indeed. It is as if no one uploaded it to the net.

[Secretsivekept]

that's an interesting insight to Astro's backstory!!

[Little Brown Fox]

I remember that, heheh! I actually kind of like the taller Astro now, but when I first saw these pages (some of which were available in that particular volume's preview on the Dark Horse website, I believe), I didn't really like the taller Astro, either! I especially did not like his Fourth Grader look; now I adore it to the point of having a (sadly little maintained) ask blog on Tumblr. I wish more of the story was available to an English-speaking audience; it'd be helpful to know what happened in canon up to its end. (I know it ended too soon; I wonder if anyone ever took on the completion of it...)