Tenma'63

[Saruta]

Hello,

For my Art of the Impossible", I was considering the actions of Dr.Tenma in Episode 1 '63, and re-watched the episode carefully (with very valuable help from my son!)

And he actually seems much less of a bad guy than often imagined. That is, once you consider the logical offscreen reality.

To start with, he could not REALLY have taken all decisions alone. He was a director or minister (depends on what text you trust; apparently minister in the original, but is a minister not a political appointment in Japan?). That is, a state employee, not a capitalist. He could not just do his whim with loads of state money, there had to be a reason. Besides, would YOU want a son with guns out of his butt? ANd if you did want one, would you *fail to teach him to use the guns* when living with him for some years?

So who approved the money and insisted on the guns? The military, of course. This is a Cold War era work, after all. I guess this was very obvious to every viewer back then, especially in the United States. Actual viewers who were kids at the time can correct me

So, Tenma leads the making of the robot. Then decides to train him in social interaction alone, as his son. But this is a very complicated task, likely not even tried before, and pushing AI beyond its llimits. Quite logically, the endeavour is too much for Umataro Tenma and drives him over the brink (he was not too far from that to start with). He is failing. He knows it.

Dr. Tenma could just walk away from the robot. The military would then take him over. Small size, very fast and agile, cute-looking, hidden arms - this is an advanced recon and raiding machine. What are his chances of surviving the next local/proxy war, of which the Cold War was quite full by 1963? Tenma does not see Atom as indestructible; this may be a kids' show but in Astro'63, unlike Astro'80, there is no "genre savvy"!

Thus, he makes a decision that is as brilliant as it is mad - hide the robot in a robot circus! And use his own signature as minister/director to seal this. AND use his mental condition to escape prison for this signature.

To make sure this does not go very wrong, Tenma deceives Hamegg about Astro's true powers. Not only does he not mention the weapons, but Astro's true power source remains obscure, too! "No electricity for you!" says Hamegg to Astro - not realizing Astro's main power is from his nuclear reactor inside. (The result - Astro recharges other robots, participates in a rescue operation, kicks BIGTIME butt when saving Hamegg, and only then colllapses, because a small nuclear reactor also has limited output).

The circus still goes somewhat wrong, but Astro survives the few crucial years until robot rights make the danger of involuntary military use obsolete... unless they decree conscription for robots, of course. But conscription would need a major war. The robot boy is MUCH safer as a result of his father's allegedly villainous act.

Up Tenma

[AprilSeven]

SCATHINGLY BRILLIANT!!! :d evil:

As a child of 10, the military aspect of Astro completely escaped my attention in 1964 when I first saw Astro Boy. My only awareness of the "Cold War" was occassional air-raid drills and my dad building a bomb shelter in our basement (which looked like "fun" to me! :d oh

I just figured Tenma (or, Dr. Boynton as he was called in the original US anime) wanted Astro Boy to be "perfect" and that also meant safe in any situation.

But your concept is way more believable and still makes me wonder if, in fact, a real Astro Boy would/could actually exist. It is the perfect "steal weapon."

Just read the next chapter of Art of the Impossible - L VE IT, SARUTA!!! Glad you're back and looking forward to the next chapter!!

[Prettywitchiusaka]

Hello,

For my Art of the Impossible", I was considering the actions of Dr.Tenma in Episode 1 '63, and re-watched the episode carefully (with very valuable help from my son!)

And he actually seems much less of a bad guy than often imagined. That is, once you consider the logical offscreen reality.

To start with, he could not REALLY have taken all decisions alone. He was a director or minister (depends on what text you trust; apparently minister in the original, but is a minister not a political appointment in Japan?). That is, a state employee, not a capitalist. He could not just do his whim with loads of state money, there had to be a reason. Besides, would YOU want a son with guns out of his butt? ANd if you did want one, would you *fail to teach him to use the guns* when living with him for some years?

So who approved the money and insisted on the guns? The military, of course. This is a Cold War era work, after all. I guess this was very obvious to every viewer back then, especially in the United States. Actual viewers who were kids at the time can correct me

So, Tenma leads the making of the robot. Then decides to train him in social interaction alone, as his son. But this is a very complicated task, likely not even tried before, and pushing AI beyond its llimits. Quite logically, the endeavour is too much for Umataro Tenma and drives him over the brink (he was not too far from that to start with). He is failing. He knows it.

Dr. Tenma could just walk away from the robot. The military would then take him over. Small size, very fast and agile, cute-looking, hidden arms - this is an advanced recon and raiding machine. What are his chances of surviving the next local/proxy war, of which the Cold War was quite full by 1963? Tenma does not see Atom as indestructible; this may be a kids' show but in Astro'63, unlike Astro'80, there is no "genre savvy"!

Thus, he makes a decision that is as brilliant as it is mad - hide the robot in a robot circus! And use his own signature as minister/director to seal this. AND use his mental condition to escape prison for this signature.

To make sure this does not go very wrong, Tenma deceives Hamegg about Astro's true powers. Not only does he not mention the weapons, but Astro's true power source remains obscure, too! "No electricity for you!" says Hamegg to Astro - not realizing Astro's main power is from his nuclear reactor inside. (The result - Astro recharges other robots, participates in a rescue operation, kicks BIGTIME butt when saving Hamegg, and only then colllapses, because a small nuclear reactor also has limited output).

The circus still goes somewhat wrong, but Astro survives the few crucial years until robot rights make the danger of involuntary military use obsolete... unless they decree conscription for robots, of course. But conscription would need a major war. The robot boy is MUCH safer as a result of his father's allegedly villainous act.

Up Tenma

Hmm, you know that's actually a plausible theory, especially given how Tenma has been expanded upon in later adaptations following the 63 series.

The only thing I think you could expand upon with this is if you perhaps explained the powers a bit better- does Tenma build them into teh boy? Or is merely a case of the boy evolving before his eyes like in the 03 series?

[Saruta]

I think Tenma built the powers in to start with, because these were the specifications enforced by the military. However, he kept them hidden from Atom's AI consciousness.

That consciousness was not ready-made, it evolved by learning. Thus, the "raising as a son" thing was a legitimate part of developing the robot. But while Atom learned things and words and social constructs, and also usage of some of the powers (in the English dub Tenma explicitly mentions teaching him to fly, though that seems absent in the original), other powers (all the weapons) were kept unknown to him. He had the circuits to activate them - but not the knowledge to use the circuits.

Tenma's approach was a dead end. Whether he was really going mad, or just your typical nerd who had no understanding of longer-term social things, he could not keep Atom and the military apart forever...

This rolls into a new story, a dark one, not compatible with "Art of the Impossible" (which is really rather light-hearted, trying to toughen up the sci-fi while keeping the cheerful tone of the original).

What if Tenma really KNEW what he was doing all along? What if he was never mad? What if his rejection of Atom, his "why don't you grow" and the theatrical cruelty in giving him to Hamegg, was all an act, designed to make Atom hate him and never miss him?

But if so, what next? Umataro Tenma has just committed a massive breaking of the law. He signed millions in state property over to some circus (Hamegg was probably known to him because he scooped up failed prototype models, like Golem/Zog, for small money). If he does not have a provable insanity defense, it's time for a trial and jail... but, he is Japanese after all. I'm afraid the end is clear.

[Saruta]

makes me wonder if, in fact, a real Astro Boy would/could actually exist. It is the perfect "steal weapon."

Here's something interesting.

http://www.gizmag.com/nuclear-uav/22041/

For the military, Astro would be just that. An unmanned intelligent nuclear powered drone.

(Wings are actually a better idea than pure rocket flight - and Tezuka eventually guessed it! He introduced them in Jetter Mars, whose body designer was pro-military).

[Prettywitchiusaka]

Hmm, so Tenma built the powers into Astro and suppressed them, but Astro still evolved enough to unlock that part of himself...You know, I can really buy that. It makes sense in the grand scheme of things, and adds credence to Tenma over compensating his own abilities.

[Saruta]

Not sure what you mean by Tenma overcompensating his own abilities. I only know one thing of "his own" he overcompensated for. His parenting failure.

And yes, Astro's AI did evolve - and in my model it was built to evolve. I have a rather clear idea where IT in that world deviated from our reality, and how this led to AI evolution. Instead of pursuing gigahertz and gigabytes as we did, they - under pressure from military-industrial necessity - went for massive parallel use of thousands upon thousands of simple processors (generic and specialized).

Ultimately, by the late 90s they reached a stage where any thousand processors, with interconnections determined by software, could fit on one chip. Then they started detecting self-optimizations that were not planned, and guiding them. Tenma got his place in the spotlight with that effort, with Ochanomizu, who in my rendering - thanks to the 2003 translation - is really an Irishman named Patrick O'Shea, being his closest disciple.

They could never fully understand every connection, but the development was swift and tremendous. They needed a massively funded project to bring the emerging conscious AI to completion. The "atomic drone" project was very handy.

Unfortunately, the death of Tobio pushed things to another level for Tenma, changing "pet project and hope for lasting fame" into "new son". The rest, as they say, is history.

[Skymouth]

He recreated Astro Boy to be a carbon copy of his son but, and this is something I just realized at this moment, all the guns and weapons systems Astro has was probably mostly a safety measure for Astro's own protection. (In the '60's version, that is). Tenma created Astro so he wouldn't lose his son twice by some sort of accident. Though I don't understand how he expected Astro to actually grow like a human. Maybe if he were a cyborg or something, but then again Tenma's grip on reality was rather tenuous at the time of Astro's creation.

[AprilSeven]

I never considered that Tenma would "overlook" the concept of "machines can't grow" - he covered everything else. I always felt he had some kind "growth program" in Astro and THAT'S why he freaked out . . . because now his "secret" wasn't going to last . . . a child who looks 10 years old for 3 or 4 years would stick out like a sore thumb.

Something in there didn't work properly, so he had to ditch Astro.

I also always wondered where Tobio's childhood friends "went to" - who did they think Astro was?

[Saruta]

Tenma didn't keep the robot in Tobio's life in the '63 version. Atom did not go to school where Tobio was, he had his own teachers. Nor was there any "memory transfer". This is all '09 invention.

The childhood friends all knew Tobio died. It was a very public event - a failure of an automatic transportation system (if we go by the English dub) or a child being allowed to drive a car unattended somehow (possible in the Japanese where that part is wordless; canon in Astro'80). The media must have been all over it.