Week 10: Astro Boy

Astro Boy is one of the oldest manga in existence. It was the first TV anime ever which was also directed by Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka also drew the manga and is considered the godfather of all manga and anime. Astro Boy is the manga that made him famous. It is a children's manga about a robot boy who has special powers. What I like about this manga in particular is that it manages to be a fun and easy story for kids while also clearly having all of these relatively heavy-handed socio-political messages in it. I think what I find most interesting about this comic is its use of violence.  There is a lot of violence in Astro Boy in terms of robots breaking apart and destroying each other. And what is interesting about this is that it obviously got past censorship because they were robots; you never see a human die, it is always the robots destroying each other. Yet, the main themes of these stories are so extremely pro-robot. It is always about how humans are the bad guys and that robots would be good, if not for the fact that humans made them like that. The robots are always sympathetic, even if they're being used for evil purposes, they are ultimately sympathetic. It is really intriguing that the robots are these deep, realized characters and they are treated like people. A lot of the stories are about robot rights and how there is a robot rights movement. The story is constantly insistent that robots are essentially people, and yet it will just have them get killed without a second thought. So it is interesting how Osamu Tezuka is able to write a dark and emotionally effective story that is still targeted for children.