03 Why Mars Cries

[jeffbert]

This episode is loosely based upon THE GREATEST ROBOT ON EARTH story, & has several key elements of it.

1st, a few fun frames:





"I can't hit anything!"






Yamanoue has made the headlines; is Kawashimo jealous?





Some explanation is needed here.

This king had arranged a fight between his robot MAD MASK, and Dr. Y's own robot, Mars. Note that Yamanoue's intention for Mars is to make him the prototype for combat robots, so, he naturally agreed. BTW, I have seen the actor portraying the King somewhere in the MIGHTY ATOM manga, but, in checking my notes for this episode, realized that I failed to include any reference to it.

Somebody thinks it is inappropriate for Mars to appear before the King in such minimal clothing:







This robot resembles one that appeared in 115 Big Runaway Safe (-- --)!








Mad Mask makes his entrance.

I hope these next two are acceptable:



Remember, this was in the 1970s.



After this, the fight is delayed for some reason, & Mask becomes impatient. He had grabbed the bird & now demands to finish the fight:









During their fight, the lava dam was damaged.


So, they agree to deal with that before continuing the fight.










Mars believes his new found friend has finished his work here, but--


He fails to understand that Mad Mask has become a part of the repair itself.




Mad Mask tries to explain that it is a robot's duty to help humans, even if it kills him, but Mars is just a child, so he cannot accept the self-sacrifice of his new friend.





I list 4 of the 9 similarities I noted between this story, & THE GREATEST ROBOT ON EARTH:

1. On the final confrontation, the volcano erupts or the lava dam bursts.
2. The former antagonist decides to help stem the flow.
3. He is killed in the end.
4. the hero is dismayed that his ex-enemy-newfound friend is destroyed

Of the 4 differences I noted, I will list just 1:

1. There are no other robots on the hit list.

[Astro Forever]

Thanks, jeffbert!

With that, and the "elections" episode I didn't remember anything from, I'm really amazed at the similarities between the 1970 Jetter Mars and the 1980 Astro Boy! Very interesting.

[jeffbert]

Yes, there are similarities betwwen this series and several others. I think Tezuka had some key themes that he used in many series.

[Higeoyaji]

Wow, this is really something. I think I may have heard of this series before hand, but I'm not sure. From what I remember Tezuka was having issues with his publishers so he made this series which was a clone of Astro Boy. I think that sums up Jetter Mars pretty well. This show never came to America to my knowledge. I know some Japanese but not a whole lot.

I'm sure my pop is more familiar with this particular series since Japanese was his first language. Again, not certain but I'll have to ask him about this series. Thanks for sharing it! I'd love to find out more about this series.

[jeffbert]

The official Tezuka site has only a very minimal page on this series, which lacks episode data. But it does say that the ownership of MIGHTY ATOM's anime series was disputed between the creditors and the bankrupt Mushi studios, or something similar. A particular TV network wanted a MIGHTY ATOM anime series of its own, & this 27 episode series resulted. Or, as I just realized, that summary comes from elsewhere, likely Fred Patten.

[Higeoyaji]

That's interesting I'll have to do more research when I have time. I thought that one of the reasons Dr. Tezuka made this series was because he wanted Mighty Atom in color. But again I haven't really known a whole lot about this series. At one point I thought Jetter Mars was made by some other Japanese production that ripped off of Astro Boy. Now that I think about it more I wonder where that idea came from.

Thanks for posting this Jeffbert; you've got me all interested in Jetter Mars now.

[Shiyonasan]

That's interesting I'll have to do more research when I have time. I thought that one of the reasons Dr. Tezuka made this series was because he wanted Mighty Atom in color. But again I haven't really known a whole lot about this series. At one point I thought Jetter Mars was made by some other Japanese production that ripped off of Astro Boy. Now that I think about it more I wonder where that idea came from.

Actually, Tezuka did originally want a color adaptation of Mighty Atom. Here is what the Jetter Mars Wikipedia article says about that (which I think is believable in this case):

In 1977, Tezuka's animation studio Mushi Productions faced bankruptcy, leading Tezuka to work as an animation director for Toei Animation for some time. He wanted to produce a color anime adaptation for his landmark manga Tetsuwan Atom, (known to western audiences as Astroboy), but due to the financial distress of Mushi Productions, the copyrights on some of his characters were in limbo. Due to the deadline imposed on Tezuka by Toei to produce the new series, he wasn't able to secure the copyrights to his characters on time, which forced him to compromise his original project and redesign it somewhat, reworking it conceptually and visually to some extent.

Tezuka then redesigned Atom slightly, and renamed him as Jetter Mars.

Pretty unfortunate, but at least he was able to make the color adaptation three years later.

[jeffbert]

That's interesting I'll have to do more research when I have time. I thought that one of the reasons Dr. Tezuka made this series was because he wanted Mighty Atom in color. But again I haven't really known a whole lot about this series. At one point I thought Jetter Mars was made by some other Japanese production that ripped off of Astro Boy. Now that I think about it more I wonder where that idea came from.

Thanks for posting this Jeffbert; you've got me all interested in Jetter Mars now.

Here is the link to the latest episode index, which has links to all the current JM threads: http://www.astroboy-online.com/forums/showpost.php?p=195481&postcount=35