Astro Boy 11
Posted: December 4, 2007 Filed under: Astro Boy 4 Comments »Eh, what the heck. I’ll write this one tonight since I just finished it.
I still have a hard time getting through Astro Boy stories because of the density of what’s going on. The volumes are small, there’s a lot of panels on a page, and the stories can go all over the place before they’re done. It takes me one train ride to read about 40 pages of Astro Boy where I would read 160 pages of anything else.
A lot of the stories in this volume had really, REALLY random elements. The first story, which was about a robot bomb-boy built by aliens and trying to hide from bad guys on Earth, had a choice random moment which I felt could be used as an icon of 60 children’s entertainment. After the action had been largely Astro beating up alien bad guys, Astro found a remote house with an old woman living with her granddaughter. Astro suspected the daughter of being the bomb, but he let it go and the scene was relatively quiet and nice. Then, out of nowhere, they were attacked by giant ants. That’s right: giant alien ants. Didn’t know that aliens could do that? Neither did I. The ants snatch the granddaughter and fly off into space to a flying saucer. In order to catch them in the act, Astro tears one of the ants apart and hides inside it, then flies up into space with the giant ant swarm.
Another story opens with Higeoyaji riding an airplane and talking about how much he liked it. On the next page, the airplane is struck by a passing jet and split open, and all the passengers are parachuting out of it. On the next page, we find out that Higeoyaji has somehow wound up by himself in the middle of a desert, and passes out from the heat. Then a masked man pops out of the ground in a tank and offers him a ride to Japan. This is all within the first 4 pages of the story. Later, the man’s mask is taken off, and we’re treated randomly to a horribly offensive racial caricature the likes of which we’re warned about in the beginning of every Astro Boy volume. Oddly, what appears to be a straighter version of an Asian caricature appears on the next page. I don’t know.
There’s a really short story at the end of the volume where the action is abrupt and in continual affirmation of whatever the characters have just said. The effect is strange.
So yes, this was one of the most bizarre, random volumes of Astro Boy I’ve read yet. The storytelling here sort of reads like a more refined version of the bizarre tangents that would happen in Lost World, but a precursor to the insane plots we’d get in Ode to Kirihito and MW later.
Thank you, Osamu Tezuka.
The thing with the alien ants reminds me of the anime “Gatchaman.” Have you ever seen it? I used to love it as a kid when it was on American TV (edited, of course) as “Battle of the Planets.”
Anyway, in it, the villainous alien organization was always sending hordes of animal-themed mecha to attack the heroes. Probably there was one with ants, now that I think about it. Fans particularly enjoy the episode in one of the sequel series with a bunch of evil mecha cows.
No, I’ve never heard of “Battle of the Planets,” though I’ve heard “Gatchaman” mentioned peripherally a number of times over the years. Sounds pretty cool, actually, though I’d probably only wind up watching a handful of episodes. I would like to see the ant mecha one just to compare it to Astro Boy.
Actually, you may not even have been alive when it was airing, so it’s no surprise you’ve not heard of BotP. :)
The mecha parade does get wearisome, though there are standout episodes. I remember one of the reasons I loved it as a kid was because people died and stayed that way. That didn’t happen on other cartoons!
The ants weren’t alien. They were from Earth. When Astro reaches the bad guy’s spaceship they explain that they made the ants larger and then controlled by hijacking their brainwaves.
I thought it was good story with a great ending.