Astro Boy 1,2 and 3

and only 101 left... the Japanese title will be after the English ones.

anyway, the "Birth of Astro Boy" is just that. his creation, his creator's rejection, etc. not my favorite episode.

"Colosso" (Frankenstein) comes to life when robots are assigned to manufacture other robots, and can't do it. he goes berserk, takes up with some gangsters and then gets fixed.

"Expedition to Mars" Astro is put in command of the second mission to Mars. there he deals with robot prejudice and an alien invasion.

a couple things struck me about these episodes- death for one thing, was everywhere. the human version of Astro gets killed by a car, and the annoying commander in #3 sacrifices himself to stop the alien invasion. and they admit it! usually US versions would say something like "oh, he's banged up, but he will recover soon and has learned a valuable lesson." not here!

and Tezuka's humor- evident also in Kimba, the White Lion, is truly funny. it's lots of little bits here and there, but there's usually no dialog with it, so it has to work on it's own. and it does. he also designs the weirdest, coolest alien critters in #3. ima have to do some screen grabs from there, as they are very cool. not in the least be realistic, which makes it even better!

so Astro is growing on me. he was pretty whiny in those first two episodes, but the third one was fun. he's no Prince Planet, but he'll do for now.