Astro Boy 7

Yay! I got the next volume from the comic shop. Unfortunately, they didn’t have volume 8, but I didn’t think much about it until I finished this volume and found out the story is in three parts.

It’s still really, really good here. I like this huge story much better than the shorter, smaller ones, though abrupt deaths still bother me a bit. This volume deals with Astro being found in his predicament from last time 20-some years later (in a rather improbable way, though… WHY IS THE NOTE STILL INTACT?), and when he gets sent back to Japan, he gets 24 hours to do the right thing. He meets up with the kid from last time’s daughter, and they go on an adventure to try and get robots their rights. The story ends kind of sadly though, and had the volume ended on the cliffhanger here, where Astro Boy just lays down and dies in resignation, I probably would’ve been pulling my hair out.

The second half of the volume is a rather well-told origin story for Astro Boy. I can’t remember if Tezuka told us in volume one or if we learned in editor’s notes, but we got the nuts and bolts of it back then with an explanation that somehow Japanese people just always knew, and there wasn’t much of an origin story for Astro. This baffled me initially, but then I realized that he got more of an origin story than, say, Bugs Bunny, so I guess you don’t really need one.

This story is SAD. Dr. Tenma’s son Tobio dies, and Dr. Tenma goes against everyone to try and make the best robot in the world in the image of his son, sort of to replace him. Astro is called Tobio for most of the volume, and watching Tobio and Dr. Tenma is quite sad… Dr. Tenma loves this son very much, he’s gotta teach him how to be human, Tobio loves Dr. Tenma, and you know eventually Dr. Tenma sells Tobio to the circus for whatever reason. It is very, VERY sad.

The circus scenes at the end are heartbreaking, too. Hamegg makes for a good villain, as he beats and forces Astro to do a ton of horrible things he doesn’t want to do. We get a cliffhanger, but since he’s just locked in Hamegg’s closet with no power, you sort of know the potential to free him is there. Hamegg gets a pie in the face from Ochanomizu at the end too, which is also kind of awesome.

Yes. I love this story arc. Screw the strongest robot in the world, give me Once Upon a Time.