Originally posted by Astro forever@Jan 11 2006, 08:23 AM
Here is another unknown character, the one in yellow... I might be wrong, but I think I saw him somewhere in Tezuka's characters gallery. I can't seem to find him and I lack the patience to browse through all the pages again, to be honest...
As Jeffbert said the yellow guy is Ambassador Magma or Maguma Taishi. There was a live-action show of him in the 60's, we called it Space Giants in America, the first time I saw a Tezuka show, but didn't know it at the time. It was my favorite Japanese show then. He was a giant robot who could transform into a rocket and battled an allien invasion with the help of his wife and son, which the site spells his name wrong in English. It was Gam or Gamu in Romanji. He had his own theme song and the kids clearly sang: "Gamu, Gamu"
The guy in red is Big X, who is really a boy who transforms into a giant adult super hero and fights Nazis. It was an anime and manga, both of which depicted how horrible torture was. In one episode while in his helpless boy form, he is captured by the Nazis and tortured in a concentration camp. Don't worry, he escapes with the help of a girl friend he met in there. Tezuka wanted kids to see how wrong torture was. This show could never be shown to kids here, too violent. Big X made a cameo appearance in an Astro Manga, can't remember which one, may have been in the 60's Astro series too.