"Laughing Dragon" wrote:[QUOTE=MegaAstroFan75;96070]
My apologies to those who might have already said this, but I wonder if they changed Tenma because of objections to making him as dark as he was in past versions. That is, parents might have objected to a father who not only rejects his son, but who makes his life miserable. Yet, upon checking my manga notes, Tenma is Atom'a ally from his 2nd through 5th appearance in the (Shonen) manga. Likewise, in the newspaper version, he repents and teaches Atom's robot mama all of Hoshie's habits and mannerisms. I think Tenma was poorly represented in the 2003 version, & that being the most recent, other than Urasawa's Pluto, was most influential. Moreover, with most of Tenma's appearances in the B&W being excluded from the U.S. version, many viewers simply do not know of his acting as Atom's benefactor on several occasions.
He wasn't poorly represented, in fact it's probably the best version of him. The 2003 series was essentially a very very loose adaptation of Astro Reborn (a name given to penultimate episode) and Melanin Tribe. Or at least Tenma's role is. They extended his role sure, but Tenma has been a very very nasty man in the past and he is considerably watered down in the 2009 film.
You're right he is Astro's benefactor, but not after he gets over a period of craziness longer than in the film. I understand all Tenma's history, but I still love the 2003 version. Well IMO the 2003 series is the best interpretation of Astro Boy so far, and that brings me to the Tobio part. Even in the 2003 dub they call Tenma's son Tobio, and in the manga he's also called Tobio (even in the translated version). So Tobio it is.
Perhaps the question shouldn't be: Which version of Tenma is the best version, but: Which version worked best for the movie? IMO, no way would movie audiences have accepted, or even tolerated, the darker, crazier versions of Tenma. For example: Imagi gave a presentation at an anime convention some months ago, and in it, it was very straightforward about the difficulties Astro Boy has had at the box office. It listed potential reasons why the film stumbled, derived from surveys it conducted with preview audiences prior to the film's release. One objection raised by those audiences concerned Tenma's initial rejection of Astro. Now, that rejection absolutely could not have been avoided in the movie version, or Astro fans (me included) would have screamed bloody murder. And it certainly would have weakened the film's potent emotional punch. And anyway, as we all know, parents can be dreadful ninnies sometimes.
But the point is, had Tenma acted as insane and brutal in the film as he did in the manga and in some of the animes, then there would have been controversy and an outcry, and movie would be in much worse trouble than it is now. I think that's been my point all along. Giving Tenma more heart and less crazy actually helped the film. But that doesn't mean he's the best version for the manga or animes. That's a matter of opinion.[/QUOTE]
That's what I've been meaning to say from the beginning. The film had to be lighter than the Japanese Astro stuff because Americans are wusses and parents are ninnies. So therefore Tenma had to likewise be much lighter and friendlier. Although I must note I did like the hands of the film Tenma, all long fingered and spidery. They'd work great in a darker Tenma, make him look all skeletal and gaunt from being nutty.
As for best... I shouldn't have used the term best. My
favourite Tenma is 2003, partly because of the incredibly creepy voice he was given in the dub. But all versions have their merits. For example I love the 80's one for showing the workaholic side of Tenma a lot more strongly and glimpsing his non-crazy side for a longer period of time. On the flip side they wrote him out very early on and thus his potential wasn't utilized as strongly as it could've been.
And from what I've seen in the manga, well, he'd definitely qualify as the oddest. One panel he's friendly, then brutishly violent, then slapstick silly. But he would still qualify as the most outwardly dispicable and most psychotic of his incarnations.
And the movie mostly uses the 80's version I think.