Astro Boy, Vol. 6

鉄腕アトム [Tetsuwan Atom] #6

by Osamu Tezuka, Frederik L. Schodt (Translator)

In the wake of the critical acclaim of the incredible Metropolis animated feature, interest in the work of Osamu Tezuka, creator of Metropolis and the godfather of Japanese comics and animation, has never been greater, and Astro Boy is the flame that ignited the modern manga and anime industries. Perhaps the most endearing, and enduring, character to emerge from Tezuka's volcanic imagination, Astro Boy thrills, amuses, and warms the hearts of readers of all ages. In this volume, a collision with an alien spacecraft sends Astro and the craft's female pilot fifty years into Earth's past, a past before robots -- not to mention aliens! Astro must find a way back to his present -- our future -- before he runs out of power, but his power is desperately needed in a world torn by war and the terror of nuclear weapons!

Genres: Manga, Comics, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Adventure, Action

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Dr. Osamu Tezuka (手塚治虫) was a Japanese manga artist, animator, producer and medical doctor, although he never practiced medicine. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion. He is often credited as the "Father of Anime", and is often considered the Japanese equivalent to Walt Disney, who served as a major inspiration during his formative years. His prolific output, pioneering techniques, and innovative redefinitions of genres earned him such titles as "the father of manga" and "the God of Manga."

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this quickly early this morning when I couldn't get to sleep after finishing This Rough Magic. I thought it would be a nice little palate cleanser before diving into Wolf Hall , the first leg of my Hilary Mantel trilogy mini-marathon.

And this was a fun little book which helped me understand better the Astro Boy stories I had recently worked my way through in volumes 7 and 8. Volume 6 is the first of the three part mini-series that involves time travel and all sorts of interesting things like a character who comes from a planet where the inhabitants look just like grasshoppers except for their human heads.

And they act like grasshoppers, too. At least the female did. She thought it was boring to be married to her scientist husband so during their honeymoon she decides to leave him and marry a rich businessman instead so that all she has to do is....well, nothing at all.

But things don't go quite as she plans and after the big explosion she meets Astro Boy and their adventure begins. I must say, until I realized that she was supposed to be as flighty and jumpy as a grasshopper, she annoyed the heck out me. But then I got it and thought the author's
portrayal and her development during the stories was pretty clever.

There were also a few pages in the front of the book to explain why Astro Boy would be traveling through time here. It seems that Astro Boy and the author had finished a television series with AB riding a nuclear bomb into the sun in order to save Earth. But it turned out that fans were not happy about that ending. Surely their robot hero could not just disappear forever?!

So in 1967 Texuka began serializing Astro Boy stories in the newspapers again, and had to explain what had really happened after that last scene. And that is why Volumes 6, 7, and 8 of this 23 volume series are so different from the others.

Now I have an announcement to make about my future with Astro Boy. There will not be one. I have bought 12 of the 23 titles, with the majority of the stories having been published in the 1960's and early 70's. That would be the time my husband was such a big fan. Marco and I have agreed that this number of books will do him nicely for any jaunts he wants to take down Memory Lane, especially after I told him how disappointing Volume 23 was. It was from the 80's, and there were other exciting adventures in Marco's life by then anyway. Like a son of his own to raise, a career to tend to, and a huge earthquake to recover from.

So adios, Astro Boy! I have enjoyed your company, but it is time for you and those machine guns in your butt to move along, whether it is back in time or to the future is up to you.

[hotsake (André Troesch) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a difficult volume to rate. The overall story was good and some of the smaller side stories were fun as well but the bulk of the volume was taken up by the Locus Woman storyline which I didn't like at all.

[Allan Olley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume collects the run of Astro Boy as a comic strip in the Sankei newspaper 1967 (almost the whole year), as explained in the prologue added in the 1975 Japanese collection, this followed up on the finale of the Astro Boy cartoon series where Astro Boy is lost floating in space. In the newspaper strip Astro is then rescued by aliens. Technically that link to the cartoon is excised from the start of this collection. The story begins with Astroboy and the alien woman Scara thrown back in time about 50 years from the far off future of 2017 to 1969. It follows Astro as he attempts to find friends and a place as a fish out of water in this past. He also interacts with some primitive robots and younger versions of his friends from the future and so on. He even becomes involved in the Vietnam war (the creator Osamu Tezuka was a vocal critic of American actions there). It ends on a cliff hanger.

I think this entire thing is a little bit tired and unoriginal compared to other Astro Boy stories, retreading similar ground and some of the characterization is too broad and reliant on stereotypes for my taste, but it still has its moments of fun and poignancy.

Unlike the usual entries in this collection this volume seems to be the complete in order panels of the comic from end to end (except for the added prologue), I believe this continues in volume 7 and volume 8 completes the run of Sankei newspaper comic strips.

The story is divided into the following sections:
"Once Upon a Time" Astro Boy Tales Part 1 (The prologue added for the 1975 collection with Osamu Tezuka explaining the background of this series)
Beginning of the contradiction (Astro Boy's arrival in the past and the back story of Scara)
Living on Earth, 101 (Astro and Scara settle in to the 20th century)
The Birth of Neva #2 (Astro meets a young version of his friend Professor Ochanomizu)
Baro, the Robot (Astro tries to make friends with a robot bomber)
Scara Disappears
The Energy Tube (Astro gets involved with industrial spies)
The Angle of Vietnam (Astro gets embroiled in the Vietnam war)

[Natalie]

I can honestly say that I have no idea how the heck this book was the manga that ‘started’ the shounen manga or inspired manga artists with their successful shounen series such as Dragon Ball. This manga is just kind of out there that I have absolutely no idea how I was going to rate this.

First off, this manga was made in the 50’s so the art and the story really has an old fashion type story structure that we’ve seen in old comics before. Especially in the sci-fi and the action genre. The hero lives life normally (or sometimes discovers new powers about himself). A villain appears and causes chaos.

There’s nothing much to say about this book except for the fact that some of the scenes in this manga don’t make any sense and just pop out of nowhere. For example, in the beginning of the manga there is this young boy driving a car. Mind you that this kid is no older than 12 years old and yet he recklessly drives the car and ends up getting into an accident. There’s also the police cars that are shaped like dog heads and there are some sort of diamonds on the moon (or some sort of crystals with an abandoned city, I can’t remember).

The plot is just series of events that happen to our protagonist, Astro Boy and they are kind of boring and lame. They’re predictable and the villains are not really that interesting and can sometimes be kind of stupid. Astro Boy is the only thing about this manga I actually enjoyed. He’s nice, wants to do the right thing, stands up for his friends and is basically your typical superhero. He’s not that interesting or complex but they do give him a good backstory that makes you feel sympathy for him.

If you like the story of robots coexisting with human then this’ll be a cute manga to check out. Just keep in mind that it was made in the 50’s so the plot and the characters are kind of old fashioned and not that complex.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picking up where the Astro Boy TV show left off with Astro heading to his death into the heart of the sun, these stories, in a weird and very rare moment of cross-medium storytelling chart what happened next to our hero. Not that the situation matters because we're very quickly plunged into a dense selection of the weirdest Astro Boy stories we've had thus far, featuring the story of an alien locust-woman whose husband has to fight to the death another man because she's bored, to astro heading back with her in time and learning to live in the 20th century, to an affecting story of a robot testing a nuclear explosion that doesn't want to die... to astro running out of energy and desperately needing to find a way to gain more whilst keeping his identity as a robot secret. Oh, on top of all that he manages to sensitively tackle the injustices in Vietnam.

There are so many weird little things and interactions in this volume - I particularly liked Scara the locust woman whose nature caused her to want to just wander off and have fun in random ways, but who also did wonderfully idiosyncratic things like stick her butt in the air when measuring for a suit of clothes. Tezuka's balance between adventure, pathos and good natured humour is at its strongest in this volume.

[Anthony Wendel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic installment of the Astro Boy series. Attempting to fix the mistakes of the first Astro Boy TV series, Tezuka continues where the show left off in a story which flings Astro Boy into the past. From there it's an incredible fish out of water story as Astro tries to adjust to the world of the past.

[Chris Ainsworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first bit of the way into this story, I was expecting another 2 star book, but by the time I finished, I loved it. Astro Boy is worst when it's lazy and clunky, best when it goes unexpectedly dark.

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

this volume of astro boy truly has everything:

- tezuka's transformation fetish
-women be shopping
-homeless people make good money begging
-victorianish moralising about everyone needing to work
-astro boy intervening to stop americans bombing innocent vietnamese villagers

[Malavika Hegde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was a fun read

I loved every chapter. It was fun to read and follow the story. The art is very nice and made me feel nostalgic. Took me back to childhood.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my god

[Andrea Mullarkey · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I'm learning about new things I find there is real benefit to be had going back to the beginning. I was looking forward to Astro Boy as the very beginning of manga and it was really interesting to see the foundation of the format and also to note the ways it has evolved. It was equally interesting to learn about Tezuka being inspired by Disney and western forms. So as a historical or academic inquiry I will say this book was a huge success. But as a comics reading experience, maybe not so much.

The book itself was a little odd to me. Because this was originally published serially in newspapers, the narrative was somewhat disjointed. And there are some irritating things that come with it having been published in another era, specifically the depiction of women and people from other places. But perhaps the most distracting thing was just how dense it was. One of the comic book clubbers noted that it was so much like a novel (and he didn't mean that in a good way) and I have to say I agree with him. There is a lot going on, the pages are cramped and the overall effect was a little uncomfortable.

But it wasn't all bad. For one thing the art was amazing! There are certain images where Tezuka's line work just had me stopped dead in my tracks. The details in the backgrounds and shading reminded me just how much work this kind of drawing it; work that for many cartoonists now is handled by computers. But to see it in the midst of these silly little stories just blew me away. And it was fascinating from a cultural/historical perspective to read the final section in Vietnam since most of my cultural exposure to the Vietnam War has been through an American lens.

And so in the end I am glad I read this. And I will continue to share it with future comic book clubs because it is so educational. But I can't say I'm going to look forward to reading it over and over again the way I will with something like Robot Dreams.

[Armand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Astro Boy is one of those comics I've known about, but honestly, I would never have picked it up except that I ran across the Original Astro Boy #6 on sale for 50 cents at Boomerangs in Boston.

It wound up being an odd scenario of sorts as it turned out that #6 was the last of the Tezuka Astro Boys that was published. Maybe because of this, it's rather dark, sad and sober, pretty much the opposite of what I would expect from a comic book called Astro Boy. I presume-perhaps falsely- that if I had picked up one if the earlier issues, the themes would have been a bit more light-hearted.

Actually, this book was a study in contradictions. The illustrations are very cartoony (in an old school way) including the use of what I call fight-clouds in which violence is portrayed as a stormy cloud with a few protruding limbs. And there are sight-gags like Professor Ochanimizu's huge nose that gets bigger when he's upset. A lot of the art reminds me of stuff published by Disney in the 50's and there are numerous jokes throughout.

On the other hand, the story also includes people dying in horrible painful ways and the last chapter is all about American bombers wiping out villages of people in Vietnam. The end is solemnly, painful and dark; even an inspired robot boy from a warless future can't address the complex problems of our day and age.

The book asks surprisingly keen questions like: what are the good and bad points in employing robots over people? Is it right to kill killers? What good are superpowers in a world where there aren't enough resources?

In the end, I found this blend of comic style, philosophy and social to be engaging and fresh, if not a bit depressing.

[Marchel · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. Goresan pada Mata Patung
Masuk 7 orang keluar 6 orang. Misteri !!!

2. Ivan yang Bodoh
Atom ketemu robot buatan Rusia (ceritanya sih itu robot pertama buatan negeri Rusia ^^) bernama Ivan ketika Atom harus terdampar di bulan.
Cerita impian lama manusia yang ingin tinggal di planet lain selain bumi...

3. Rahasia Komplotan Mesir
Wah, Cleopatra-nya cantik banget *terpesona*

4. Gadem
Apa itu Gadem? Sebuah monster ataukah manusia itu sendiri yang monster karena ketamakannya?

[sucker4synth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Astro Boy is sent into the past! He emerges in the present (which was then 1969) to discover a world at war, where robots are feared and thought of as objects. To make matters worse, there is not way for Astro Boy to recharge himself, so he's only got a short time to live. Sad stuff, especially when Astro Boy visits Vietnam. There is a charm to seeing Astro in the present. Holds a mirror to humanity even more so than the previous stories.

[Hillingdon Libraries]

Find this book at Hillingdon Libraries

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was exiting.

[Jonny · Rating 5 out of 5]

my VERY favourite out of all the astro boy stories I've read!!!!1

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This manga has some surprisingly deep historical themes. I read it for my library's teen comix discussion club. I just hope the teens read it and liked it as much as I did!

[Badr Al Ghamlasi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The idea of a time traveling Astro Boy is very enjoyable & fun to read

[Raghav Arora]

my best hero