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Hirpina81 β€” Tetsuwan Atom 201

#astroboy #tetsuwanatom
Published: 2015-10-17 14:59:54 +0000 UTC; Views: 342; Favourites: 5; Downloads: 0
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Description In spite of pain and damage, he's listening. He will fight until the end.
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Comments: 7

Dragonrider1227 [2015-10-25 03:19:33 +0000 UTC]

aww poor atom

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Hirpina81 In reply to Dragonrider1227 [2015-10-25 18:04:34 +0000 UTC]

Eh, this happens many times. Poor kid! He's very delicate, in spite of his strenght and his powers. He is very often called for a battle, a fight, a great adventure. As a robot he's always on first line. This is really hard for someone who's created to be a kid.
Japanese heroes always are seen as hard and noble spirits, so they don't show lots of their emotions... sometimes they don't show any. But Atom, in all his versions, is always a kid. So, in old comics he cried a lot, while in present days his bad feelings are not showed openly. Even when he's almost banned or chased by people who want to destroy him.
This does not mean he does not feel anything; this means he has got to not show too much weakness, if he wants to achieve his goal.
As I told before, there are few situations where I imagine him lose control and cry out his own feelings.
As a machine and thanks to his sense of duty, he will fight to the last spark of energy. This does not mean he does not suffer, but he puts himself and his needs after his greater wish.

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Dragonrider1227 In reply to Hirpina81 [2015-11-01 06:22:43 +0000 UTC]

uh-huh. In the end, after all his strength and super hero antics, he's simply a child wishing to be accepted

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Hirpina81 In reply to Dragonrider1227 [2015-11-01 21:57:06 +0000 UTC]

Yes. And as a child, he needs love, tenderness, a hug; he wants to play the hero, not to BE the real thing. Not every single day, at least. That's why he needs kids' company and a sibling.

It's a thing that American dubbers did not get, or maybe they seem they did not get it: when Uran meets Atom's schoolmates, in the episode of the Theme Park, in the English translation Shibugaki aka Abercrombie, says she is a 'bogus'.
Just today, this morning, I got what "a bogus" means. It's a fake, a not reliable thing because it's not real. So Abercrombie thinks Uran is a fake, according to the English translation. Well, if Uran is a fake, even Astro is a fake, isn't he?
This kind of contempt is absent in the original translation: Atom's schoolmates simply ignore Uran, as every male kid does with his friend's little sister.

The English version just sees Uran as she was only a sop for female audience, and see her just as an annoying sidekick; maybe she was invented just to attract more girls to the comic and then to the show; she was AstroGirl, she was powerful and sometimes she was drawed as she could fly too. But her character evolved in more than 60 years. She is no more just a ball-and-chain to her brother. She can make him angry as no-one else, that is true but she is a great AI machine too. She is strong and can help. She was the one who discovered the hypno-waves that invaded doctor Ochanomizu's mind; Atom, too powerful, did not notice them, because he is shielded. There will be needed a hundred of them to make him fall on his knees.
The joke about the sibling as it was a disease, repeated in all translations around the world, is another proof of it.
There's another joke, where Astro says that talking with his sister is as talking with a disconnected computer; it seemed a great joke for me, when I heard it for the first time. But when I saw it was just another new piece, absent in the original version, I felt very stupid. I can bear such jokes from Marvel heroes, as SpiderMan, who invents thousand jokes, and at the same time fights against Venom or Doc Octopus. It's not AstroBoy, it's not Atom.

If Uran was a bogus, Atom is a bogus too. So, as a fake, no robot could be considered as a friend, but just a great simulation; if one of those talking 'bots bores you, you can deactivate it, with your conscience light as a feather.
This means that the whole anime is a fake: it's not really important if Atom lives or not, if it's considered a bogus. If he is not considered living and feeling, it's not worth to see his personal adventures. Let's play videogames instead. :-/

I think English translators did not even get a thing about that series.

I am really curious about the last one, in computer graphics, with that green-eyed Atom and that strange Tokyo/Metro City/Wherever it is.
As a co-production (France, Japan etc) the main character would be influenced by different culture waves. Maybe we will see another version of the story we all know. Maybe an original one.
And, this time, I am sure they already censored all the hugs and childish things, before American translators put their hands on it.

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Dragonrider1227 In reply to Hirpina81 [2015-11-02 03:54:18 +0000 UTC]

I think by "bogus" he meant she's not as good as Astro. She's a fake Astro. Which is pretty cold. But Shibugaki isn't always very nice.
But this is my biggest complaint about the American dub. They did not get the idea that Atom is a child. Instead deciding to focus on him being a snarky action hero type.

That's probably it exactly. Wanting to appeal to American boys, they probably tried to make Astro more like the popular Marvel characters like Spider-Man or Iron Man who are more snarky, cracking more jokes, and generally have more attitude. Perhaps believing a character like Atom would be considered boring to most American kids. But what makes them work is that behind the snark and attitude is a human side that the dub failed to apply to Astro. Otherwise, a small bit of humor and snark might've worked.

I too am very curious to see what they have in store for "green eyed Atom" and I'm hoping whoever was in charge of the 2004 dub has absolutely nothing to do with the American release of this one so any hugs and childish things may remain intact.

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Hirpina81 In reply to Dragonrider1227 [2015-11-10 22:42:33 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, Shibugaki has always been rude, not a genius, indeed. But it was a part that does not exist in the original opera.
They changed the character. Shibugaki did not say anything, just ignored Uran, that's all. Why they had to put that rude and stupid word?
There are 1000 things they could do to make the show better: Japanese authors like to always play on the same field, using plain dialogues where sometimes it seems that the ones who are talking ignore each other's words. While, the American cinema and comic experience, plus the culture, could give the dialogue that sparkling spirit lackin' in Japanese lines.
Not all Japanese works are like this. There's a great humour under all that dramatic stories and calls of duty. There's, for an example, a great phrase taken from "LamΓΉ", by Rumiko Takahashi (the same author of RanmaΒ½ and InuYasha): Sakurambo, the priest, tells why he chose this name when he decided to become a monk.
"Sakurambo means cherry." he says. "And like a cherry, a monk's life is sweet on the surface, all stone inside".

If they tried to make a good job, they would not try to transform AstroBoy in a tiny version of Iron Man, but in a better version of what he really is. I don't want Atom to speak like Kevin McAllister or "Problem child", but, mantaining his original features, give him more colors and character.

Fans could love that sweet boy, hearing him full of life not only thanks to the fact he moves and talks, but also from his way to say words; what happened to Jetter Mars italian dubbing made the show very weird, but gave it a strange flavour, and Mars was simply great, adorable and exactly between a human and a robot, with his voice and his way to say "father of mine" instead of "my father". He was lovely. They could invent something even for Atom, if they really want to make AstroBoy 2003 better.
In the original Japanese version Atom seems more static, although the scenes are almost the same. I think it was not Atom, but it was the Japanese culture, that's all.

I noted that all fan-fiction authors make Atom how they like: as Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, they can manipulate the character a lot, because he's got few specific features. He's a kid, he's got a strong sense of duty, he's sweet and caring, he's a great robot. Above this, you can invent almost anything, even twisting the character himself.
When there are some professional at work, I expect they will not make the same errors fan-fictioners do.
The reality, of course, is different.

I am afraid they censored all their ideas BEFORE they put them on a paper or on a screen.
I don't want to see Atom only as a nature defender; he was friendly and he loved all the living beings, but he was not only a nature-hero. And I don't want Atom used to spread ideas he would never had, maybe about politics. They can do this, I am afraid of it. There are some messages put between the lines that reach your head and heart before your conscience.
I'd really like to see more then the short preview we all know.
Somewhere I saw there will be also a new Atlas. Uhm... let's see.

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Dragonrider1227 In reply to Hirpina81 [2015-11-11 03:32:22 +0000 UTC]

They probably just thought it was funny. I've noticed a lot of anime dubs (especially ones to be aired for kids) like to add "funny" lines that aren't there originally.

Ugh, I know. I get so mad sometimes at how terrible that dub is and how I'm sure it's only like that as a shallow attempt to make Astro "cooler" to American boys.

Like with all creations, Atom is open to interpretation by different fan artists and some of these interpretations can be better than others. Heck, the 2003 series, even though It takes lots of inspiration from Tezuka's original works, Tezuka was long dead when it was written, so that counts as an interpretation as well.

I think it's a different group working the Astro Boy reboot so hopefully the issues won't be the same. All I know about the new series is that Astro is more robot-like and struggles on being more like his human friends but trying really hard to fit in. Unsure where they're going with Atlas though.

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