The robot had an existence prior to the point at which the series begins. His 'life' with Dr. Tenma (Boynton) had occured entirely before this. The series opens with Dr. Elefun awakening the robot, and apparently he had tried to expunge all his memories before this event. He addresses him as 'Tob...', looks at the project's name,
Astro
Tech
Omni
Modality Project
which conveniently has the acronym 'ATOM', and names him this, instead of 'Tobio'.
Question, with all the graphics being in English (such as the latter, and street signs, store names, etc), will the dub call him 'Atom'?
The graphic during the opening theme, says 'Astroboy', yet the acronym is 'ATOM'. There is a scene in which the bewildered young robot meets a little girl taking a walk with her papa-san, merrily swinging their arms. The robot tries to do likewise, but ends up whipping the man around like a scarf in the wind. Later, after saving the day, the little girl seeing the robot sparkling as it discharges the enegy it had absorbed, says, "So beautiful, looks like stars. Is he the astro boy?"
That is the only time the subtitled p-version (first 4 eps) uses the term "astro boy". I guess we must wait for the fall season to find out.
