Dent in the Head

[Spoon]

Ok, now I'm an Astroboy fan from way back, but honestly I havent watched an episode for quite a few years. One thing I'm sure I remember though, was that Astro was always denting the top of his head (the black bit) and having to have it replaced by Dr Elephant.
:huh:

However, another fan that I've been talking to reacons this never happened!.
I'm sure it happened quite a few times. Could someone help me here?

[KELPIE]

This is also the only time that I can recall where Astro's synthetic skin gets torn (which I think should have happened more often) as opposed to his trademarked "scuff marks"

[Spoon]

Thanks guys. My memory is obviously failing me. I just seem to remember this happening a lot... you know, I probably just watched the same episode heaps of times!

[Jonny Rocket]

I think it could also be one when he has to rescue a small girl whose family is trapped to work in a mine.. He travels late at night to some island and gets in trouble with his parents for being late. He dents it when someone hits him in the head or something.

I know he loses his whole head in the episode and his friends dad sees it and says to her daughter that Astro died because she didn't know he was a robot.
But I think flying around and picking up 100 ton objects must be something that little girls see everyday.

[jeffbert]

VHS has it on "Lilly on Pelegro Island", not only does he dent his noggin, but he actually flies away withoutn it! I have the series on 9 VHS tapes, and this is on tape 5. :wahah:

[DrFrag]

Dents and Cuts:

Episode 3 - Save The Classmate

Astro is thrown from the rocket coaster and scrapes his shoulder open.

Episode 20 - The Girl From Alsoar

Astro's arm is cut open of flying shards of ice when he enters the engine room of an alien space ship.

Episode 22 - The Robot Vikings

Astro uses his head as a drill to escape from the Viking's lava trap and it gets badly dented.

Episode 24 - Lilly on Pelligro Island

Astro dents his head on the ocean floor after being hit by Pelligro. Later on he is decapitated by the Queen of Pelligro.

Astro has also been electrocuted many times by Atlas's Lightning sabre, shot in the brain by Mayor Ballast, set on fire a couple of times, and many other accidents. But that could be a long list! :wacko:

[jeffbert]

Blame his innocence or naïveté for his opening his chest panel, thus allowing the Mayor to shoot his brain. After viewing all the color remake episodes, and everything of the 60s I could find on VHS, I must say that his innocent nature is his greatest weakness. He has more trouble with mere humans, than with aliens, other robots, monsters, etc. When I say 'more', I do not mean 'frequent', but rather "greater difficulty". The cunning masterminds are his greatest challenge. Although he appears to be a nine year old child, in the color remake, he is still a baby in terms of years lived, while in the 60s series, he had a few years with papa before being rejected and sold. I just finished viewing the last available tape, now what am I to do? I guess I must buy the Mangas.

[DrFrag]

I just bought a whole pile of the mangas (the Dark Horse ones). I'm really impressed at how true to the original material the animated versions stayed - right down to the camera angles in many cases.

And there's lots of extra interesting bits of information written in comic form at the start of the stories, with Osamu Tezuka appearing as himself and explaining things. Like in volume 2 he points out that Astro's horns never overlap no matter what angle he is shown from. And in volume 10 he gives the name of the funny gourd creature that pops up from time to time (hard to spot in the colour series). I always wondered about that one.

Anyway I highly recommend them.

I agree with your comments on Astro having trouble with humans. Skunk was always just as much a match for Astro as Atlas was, yet Skunk is such a weakling. Skunk was so deceptive and Atlas seemed to have a sense of honour (ie "Today we fight to the finish. Here's your sword").

[jeffbert]

I just earned a 'B' in statistics. One of my examples is a psychologist who specializes in 60s cartoon super heroes, and he wants to determine if there is a difference in difficulty for the heroes between fighting human masterminds, robots, or aliens with tenticles. While it may be tough to understand the statistical part, you will enjoy the rest. I will upload it to my webspace in the next few days, and provide the link to it. Of course, Atom is prominently featured.