So all manga and all anime that we know and love started thanks to the creative mind of a dude named Osamu Tezuka a.k.a. "The God of Manga". He created popular japanese characters such as Astroboy, Princess Knight, Black Jack, etc.
Back in the 50s he created Astroboy, which was the story of a robot that concealed a soul. It was oriented for the little kids but the author tried to express his most important message in that little manga too. That message was that "all life is sacred".
The manga became so popular that it was then decided that it will become a weekly animated show. Something that has never being done before. Before Tezuka most of the cartoons made would be shown on the teather before an actual movie. Suffice to say that Astroboy became very popular. So popular that NBC bought the rights to transmit the anime in America on the 60s. It was brough the the USA with the name of Astroboy, in Japan it is still known as "Tetsuwan Atom".
It was remade then on the early 80s with the name of "Shin Tetsuwan Atom", and then it was re-imagined on the year 2003 again with the name of "Tetsuwan Atom".
The first glimpse of animation of this series was shown back on the year 2000 but it was not release until 2003 for the simple reason that on the orginal manga Astroboy was born on 2003, specifically he was born on April 9 2003 that would make astro a

The re-imagining of astroby was beautifully animated in widescreen, and even though it was suppose to be kids story it grew out of it and it became a lot more deeper than that. Since Astro have to deal with the fact that even though he has a soul, he is not human, even though he wants to help there are people that fear his power and want to destroy him. There are moments that would keep you at the edge of your seat and there are moments that would make you cry a little.
You can watch the
]opening on youtube. I would not recommend the american release because of the next reasons:
- You get what you pay for, that means that even though it is really cheap it is also really horrible.
- 10 eps come in a single dvd, you can imagine how compressed they are.
- No japanese original language either. It come in spanish, portuguese subs.
- The only extra is the making of astroboy.
How could Sony mess up so bad with Astroboy, I have no idea.
However, if you have a nintendo ds or gameboy advance you can buy the Astroboy Advance videogame for very cheap. I would say that the game is so good that it will make you cry for two reasons:
- It is so hard that you will be happy that you finish the game
- The story is so good that tears will come out by the end of it.
If you really want to give astroboy a chance I will guide you

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