AstroBoy Online Forums

Yea, I used DAP while I crashed out and sure enough, it worked. I had a feeling it was on my end. Watched the ep this morning. I loved the sadness and self-pity scenes that AStro was filled with. I think that's why I liked it when I was a kid. I liked to feel pitiful or play like I was dying.

I'd like to make a request. How about more episodes with Young Atlas? I'm really interested in seeing scenes that I haven't seen before or that are different from the one I watched.

Episodes 1 and 2 (Japanese dub) were the only ones with a young Atlas. Unless you count the flashbacks in episode 10 Atlas Lives Again, but no new footage.

Mm. I should do some digging to find out what's different. That's what I'm interested in. Seeing what's different between the two (JP vs English).

I've done some comparisons of the first few episodes - I ran the Japanese and English side by side and watched for differences. I won't go into details of the first episode because the editing was so radical, but here are the others:

2. Robot Circus

When Tornado is destroyed in the 50,000 volt trapeze act, the Japanese version shows several more seconds of footage of his flaming body falling to the ground.

Astro says Tornado's timing is out by 1/10,000th of a second, but in the Japanese his timing is out by 1/555th of a second.

In the English version, the robot circus theme that is played during the train journey and circus parade are both instrumentals. The Japanese version has the same music, but with lyrics.

All the references of Dr Elefun coming from Japan have been removed. For example, "Look, his manufacturer. It's all made in Japan" is changed to "Look, the maker of this robot is from my country's Ministry of Science".

When Astro leaves on the plane, Cathy says "Be careful Astroboy. Bye". The lip sync at this point is way out. In the original version, she says "I like you Astroboy".

3. Save The Classmate

Pretty much identical to the original Japanese. The only minor things I noticed were Alvin putting a little more emphasis on the class election in the Japanese version (telling his friends to revote for him while there were on the amusement rides), and Alvin's friends wailing more with despair on the rocket coaster in the English version.

4. Astro's First Love

Haven't seen the Japanese version.

5. Save The Carolina 3

Identical to the original Japanese.

6. The Baby Elephant Pook

Haven't seen the Japanese version.

7. Astro Fights Aliens

When Astro enters the UFO, he discovers an alien on the floor holding a gun. In the English version he says "A gun, where did this come from?". In the Japanese version he says "It's dead."

When Astro is being attacked by Aliens and is hit while lying on the ground, he says "I've got to save the men!". In the Japanese version he doesn't say anything (even though his mouth moves).

80s Japanese vs English?

By Japanese, do you mean the p(walk the Plank)-version 5-disc set that features English subtitles? And when you say Japanese, you refer to those subtitles (I am sure you never mentioned having the ability to speak Japanese)?

I myself have noted some differences between the two, most notably in the editing, which in its worst case, involved cutting nearly an entire episode, and putting snips of it on the previous and next episodes. The subject of death is unavoidable in the series, but the editors felt that English-speaking children should not be exposed to Tobio's passing. Yet, when what's his face, the guy who treacherously gave Atom a nearly empty energy cassette, went Kamakazi on those bad ol' aliens, I am sure the edited version showed as much as the full version. The collision and explosion, and Atom's reaction. Perhaps the editors felt that a death so early in the series might frighten away some viewers.

In the manga, Pook is the transformation robot's name.

Anapan's avatar can be found in manga book 17 The Face in the Rock, and the plot is nearly identical to The Human Faced Rock, except that kid sister Uran is absent.

By Japanese, do you mean the p(walk the Plank)-version 5-disc set that features English subtitles? And when you say Japanese, you refer to those subtitles (I am sure you never mentioned having the ability to speak Japanese)?

Yes, that's right. But despite the poorly translated subtitles on the DVDs, you can tell where there has been deliberate modifications for the English dubbing on VHS.

For example, no amount of bad grammar can mistake "It's dead" for "A gun, where did this come from?". All the other speech is just bad grammar but you get the same gist of the meaning.

I remember watching Astro Fights Aliens years later, with Lt Blackstone who gave Astro the empty energy cassette. I was really surprised by his suicide at the end, you never see that in kid's cartoons of today. Apart from the butchering of episode 1, I'm not too upset about the changes that were made. They could have done a lot worse and I'm surprised they didn't. Some animes have been chopped up and joined with other animes to make entirely new stories. Battle Of The Planets, for example, had a lot of violence cut out. So much so that they had to draw up new footage of the robot 7-Zark-7 filing reports of what had happened so the viewer could still follow what was going on. They even re-dubbed the entire series under the name of G-Force years later and made it even worse.
IMO, Astroboy got off lightly. Especially with continuity.

continuity...

Yes, I agree that the 80s series continuity did seem much better. But As far as I know, the 80s series was never shown in the USA, and therefore, networks such as NBC, which twisted Tezuka's arm in the production of Kimba t W Lion, had no influence. As noted in the footnote,NBC insisted that the series be such that it mattered not in which order the episodes were shown.

Yet, the Astroboy series does lack the explanation of why the ocean liner is in danger of the iceberg. Was the Capt. incompetent? Although Tobio's death is implied by his absence after the accident, and one might assume that papa decided on his own to created the robot in his likeness, Tobio's last words do add to the drama, and the edited version just plain leaves too many questions unanswered. Besides that, little kids are not likely to hold Niki's destruction as any less significant than Tobio's death. They seem to believe that pets are just as important as people, and that which appears human, to them, is human. Yet, her demise was unedited. Moreover, Atom's sadness at her disintegration was not edited out. A little kid's emotions are more important to a little kid, than Dr. Temna's grief at his son's death. If they edited out the monitor that said "terminated", would that not have been enough? I think the editors were inconsistent. OK, I realize that a death in the first episode could have turned too many people off from the start. I do not know if the B&W version was also edited, but because it is as long as others in the same series, I would guess that it was not. :huh: Thus, the child's death was only implied by his absence thereafter.

It looks like the 80s series is the only one which shows how he got his boots.

It looks like the 80s series is the only one which shows how he got his boots.

Since they were part of his body in other series, there was no need fo any explanation.

The 60s series didn't show how he got them. He went into the circus without boots, then in one fight scene he's wearing them and he has them from then on.