And, Astroboy had a following of…one? I thought you might be referring to the 1980’s series “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe”. While I was not a fan of this series, a feature-length movie is being promoted. (Why do they bring back the dead?)
I remember watching that cartoon almost every day after school on a local tv channel. That same channel also showed Speed Racer and Marine Boy. Oh, and also Kimba the White Lion.
I had some high school friends who were more into anime than myself - there are some series I like a lot, I just don’t always have to have the new best thing and all - and a few of them brought over a copy of Astro Boy once. I’ve never heard anybody apologize so much and so often. I doubt we made it through ten minutes.
Interestingly, the show did figure prominently in one of the strangest student theatre productions I’ve ever seen. Astro Boy was kind of a motif and starting-point, and there were all these tangets about nuclear power, Japanese experiments and vivisection of Chinese prisoners during WWII, explosions from the chemistry department… well, I SAID it was student theatre, didn’t I?
Hey, both He-man and Optimus Prime are back, as well as MUSCLEs and small GI Joes. Proof once again that the 80’s were the best time to grow up in.
(i’ve read some of the Astroboy Manga, it’s okay, would have probably been more influential on me if i was a kid when it first came out instead of finding it in my early 20’s reading it in a bookstore)
I love Astro Boy. I think it goes beyond nostalga for a cartoon I watched as a kid. In my opinion Astro Boy is one of the greatest cartoons ever shown on TV. By the way if your interested, Dark Horse is reprinting the Astro Boy manga.
Now, now kids… I see no reason that Astro Boy and Prince Planet fans can’t co-exist in peace. I loved both as a lad, and Speed Racer and Marine Boy (the 2nd generation proto-anime, introducing COLOR) too.
I must say that I don’t have entirely positive feelings about a remake. Heaven knows what 21st century youth culture sensibilities and political correctness will mutate it into. Better that someone should re-run the originals. Even colorizing them might be acceptable (surely nobody thinks that the cinematography would be ruined), so long as the plots and violence remained intact.
Somehow I think that the violence of '60s anime, where people could get hurt and die, and actions had consequences, was far more moral than anything that passes for children’s entertainment today.
Was Astroboy the first anime ever? I know it’s the only one I’ve seen that was made in black-and-white. And it seems to have set the tone for the graphic style of all later anime.
