For this special Astro Boy edition Saturday Anime Night, the third of four, we are watching yet more versions of Astro Boy. First up is the first episode of the hilariously low-budget Japanese live-action Astro Boy series from 1959, which Tezuka reportedly hated. Let’s check it out. After that, we will watch episodes 1 and 2 of the 1980 Astro Boy anime, covering Astro’s origin story. We have already seen the 1963 and 2009 version of Astro’s birth, so this should make for an interesting comparison. Then, we will move onto the prequel anime Atom: The Beginning (2017), which chronicles the friendship and rivalry between Astro’s two fathers, Dr. Tenma and Dr. Ochanomizu, during their university years. Oddly, they are barely in the first episode, so I guess we will just have to watch the first two. Everything mentioned up to here will provide us with some more context for Pluto (2023), an adaptation of the manga of the same name by Naoki Urasawa (otherwise best-known for Monster), which is a dark reimagining of the legendary Astro Boy arc “The Greatest Robot in the World”. It has received rave reviews from all corners, so we will watch parts 5 and 6 (of 8) tonight.

We’ll start at 9PM EST on Hextube, right here: https://live.hexbear.net/c/movies

Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

• The various Astro Boy series: Sorry, not on Letterboxd.
• Pluto: https://letterboxd.com/film/pluto-2023-1/

Doesthedogdie.com links:

• The various Astro Boy series: Nothing on DTDD or IMDB. Sorry.
• Pluto: Ditto.

CWs for the various Astro Boy series:

• Child abuse.
• Death of child.
• Car crash.
• Gun violence.
• Anti-robot bigotry.
• Cartoon violence.
• Robot slavery.
• Deaths of sentient robots.
• Children in peril.

CWs for Pluto:

• Deaths of animals.
• Blood and gore.
• Gun violence.
• Children in peril.
• Sad ending.
• Explosions.

Links to movies:

• Forthcoming. I have the files, but the most convenient way to upload them is to replace one of the earlier videos while a later video is playing.