I was chatting on the internet just two days ago and someone just happened to mention Astroboy in a list of old 80's cartoons we used to watch. Though it ended there, my own curiosity kicked in to try to look around YouTube and see if any of the original Japanese episodes exist. The focus of my interest being: what was removed from the English version? Mainly involving the back-story to Atlas that was so well clipped out.
Aside from finding 'content blocked in your region' on a few videos, I did manage to peek at a few parts, especially one that was English. To my surprise though, it was no English that 'I' heard on the show, or to be more precise, certainly not script or voice actors and character names I remember.
It didn't take long to soon find out that living here in Canada, we got stuck with a different version of voice acting. I was in quite a shock about it all, especially finding that the 'other' English version I was watching was not cut up like the Canadian version. It had more content, but (others may not agree) a bad script and voice cast.
In the next 24 hours, I had started watching episode after episode, recalling my childhood in the best way possible since I only found 1 Canadian episode... though a post here. It was the best I would end up having to do.
It was back when I was going into Grade 3 and turned on the TV to catch The Pink Panther when my Astroboy legacy began. Alas, it was not on and a different show had appeared in it's place in the new fall schedule. I was quite PO'ed over the fact, who would replace The Pink Panther with this ridiculousness I'm seeing in this intro. So I headed back down in my bed to sulk before going on with the rest of the day going to school and such.
The next morning, I obviously had to cave in, "Might as well," I thought. Since it was up here in Atlantic Canada, the second episode intro was different, telling the back-story of the Birth of Astro as it did every episode other than the first. I was immediately wowed, this was rather interesting after all, and so much different from any other cartoon I've ever watched. This was a bold assumption after growing up on He-Man and the like just the previous 2 years, an assumption that proved right.
Call it the story, or the freshly unique voice acting where not everyone sounded like they were high on valium, I was intrigued. It was now common practice to catch Astroboy every single weekday morning. This I would effectively do without fail the entire run of the show.
It was easy for me to relate to, I was pretty much in the target demographic for the show after all. How can you not see yourself in so many ways this boy robot. In the end, the show ended up shaping me in so many ways.
Back to now, it took me so long to try to recall all the Canadian names, especially since I had an eyebrow rise and then laugh at the name Daddy Walrus, and catching the Dr. Elefant pun in relation to elephants. I ended up having to cheat (aka wikipedia) to find the names of Dr. Peabody and Max McNugget as the respective adoptive scientist and teacher to Astro.
Ah, the endearing and gentle Kathy, the elusive and pretty Natasha (Nikki in other versions), his schoolmates Alvin, Theodore (but no Simon thankfully)... then another face that became familiar...
Mindy
.... oh how I suddenly remembered the fact I had a little crush on her, being the silly little 7 year old I was. I was surprised though, even today, she's awfully adorable. I could definately see where my good taste in girls got developed.
In the next 24 hours, I learned more interesting things, like how Astro's First Love wasn't actually the 3-4th episode like was in the Canadian series, or that Atlas Forever wasn't the last. It as fun seeing what removed in the Can. series. Too bad
It's funny, I look back on the show and amazing how well it's survived the test of time. Other show's I've looked back onto like He-Man, Transformers, and a lot of other 80's shows only have the nostalgic factor going for them. Astroyboy always had more interesting plots and stories. More impressively, Atlas as a villain was better than Skeletor or Megatron, his motives were more complex and genuine in nature and he didn't do awfully dumb things that led to his own defeat.
The only problem I can see, it just isn't on Canadian airwaves anymore, and the DVD collection is in the other English language.
Some of the stories aren't even the same!
