This Friday, a boy robot named Astro Boy arrives in theaters in the fifth major imagining of the Astro Boy story (including the original 1950s Japanese comic and three television adaptations). Astro Boy is nothing short of iconic in his home country, but we have had relatively little exposure to the character in the West. So, if you’re wondering who this little android is and why he’s so important, we’ve got you covered. Here are the basics of Japan’s favorite robot, from the comic panel to the big screen.

Astro Boy is the creation of Japan's "God of Manga," Osamu Tezuka, and first appeared in a serialized manga called Ambassador Atom.¹ Astro Boy (whose Japanese name, Tetsuwan Atomu, translates to “Mighty Atom”) was not the main character and did not even appear in every installment. In 1951, though, Tezuka gave Mighty Atom his own comic, and thus was born a legend. This comic remains the reference Astro Boy work, the best and most authentic version of the character. It is based on the simple concept of a super-powerful robot built with the likeness, attitude, mannerisms, and even feelings of a young boy. As Tezuka expert Frederik L. Schodt states in his introduction to Astro Boy: Books 1 and 2,² “In an age when most American superheroes fought for a patriotic form of justice and had special powers derived from mysterious, almost cosmic sources, Astro Boy was utterly original. ... [H]is powers were based on semi-scientific or mechanical principles, and instead of fighting for justice, he fought for peace.” Astro Boy was a heartening comic about a purely innocent boy robot hero who wants not to punish bad guys but to simply stop them from doing evil and hopefully turn them to good.

The innocence of the comic was amplified by Tezuka’s artwork, which consisted of smooth, clean lines and plenty of playfulness. Astro Boy himself is especially drawn to perfection, his facial expressions consistently retaining a childish demeanor, assisted by manga-large eyes and prominent eyelashes. When he does look angry, his otherwise innocent features convey the anger to be aimed not so much at the evildoers as at the evil itself. Even the bad guys are drawn with cartoonish features so that they always look redeemable. Everything is drawn to maximize the optimistic nature of the work.

Surprising for most first-time Astro Boy readers is the depth of the subject matter Tezuka injected into the comic. Glancing through the pages, Astro Boy would appear to be simple children’s entertainment; however, throughout the series, Tezuka tackled serious and even radical issues. Ada Palmer, creator of Tezuka in English, tells The Sci-Fi Block, “Astro Boy was largely about prejudice and racism, whether humans could ever coexist with another kind of sentient life [such as self-aware robots] and also the question of whether people would ever stop using technology toward evil ends like war and crime." Palmer elaborates, "Consequently, even though it was for kids, the original comic was often extremely dark. Astro was sold into slavery, imprisoned, tortured, dismembered, and frequently witnessed not only the death of friends but war, mass murder, genocide, and enormous cruelty on the part of humans, both toward robots and toward other humans.”

However, constantly wary (perhaps overly so) of alienating readers, Tezuka employed a number of idiosyncratic techniques to ensure the comic would remain light-hearted, at least on its surface. The artist was known to pull humorous characters out of thin air and simply drop them into panels for comedic relief. One such character was Spider, a funny-looking guy (not a spider) who would randomly show up and say “Here ta met ya” to the main characters. Other times, Tezuka would explicitly remind readers that the events are taking place safely within a comic, using techniques such as having a character come right out and say, “It’s a comic strip, after all,” or by having characters literally interact with the panels themselves.

Tezuka’s Astro Boy manga is somehow simultaneously cute, exciting, fun, serious, humorous, simple, beautiful, and daring. It is unfortunate that the comic never gained mass popularity in the West because it can appeal to virtually anyone. The pure innocence and moral integrity of this little robot, along with his physical ability to take on even the most powerful enemies, makes Astro Boy a work of science fiction that should be as famous everywhere as it is in its home country.

Throughout the years there have been numerous adaptations of Astro Boy in different forms. There were some now-rare movies, an infamous live-action series, and even a handful of comics written by other authors (including a tie-in to the upcoming film). The most famous adaptations, though, have been the TV series. None of them remained completely true to the original (the first series being the closest), but they all had good qualities and helped to popularize the character not only in Japan but in other countries.

In 1963, the Astro Boy cartoon premiered in Japan and, later in the year, in the United States. This cartoon, directly overseen by Tezuka himself, was black and white and used only eight frames per second of animation. Though it remains the most faithful adaptation of the manga, it was not perfect, and even Tezuka had some misgivings about it. He was primarily disappointed with his inability to tackle the darker, more serious elements of Astro Boy, especially in the show's American cut. The studios simply demanded a more consistently cheerful tone. Also, being forced to confine every story into one episode was a heavy restraint for the artist, who was used to dragging stories out through a serialized comic. Without this leisure, Tezuka was unable to fully explore the deeper aspects of the scenarios he created. This lead to weakened stories.

However, the show was able to triumph over its shortcomings in several ways. First of all, it featured a theme song so catchy that it remains loved to this day. Also, the cartoon's visual style, though limited, was used to perfection. According to Palmer, “Tezuka was also a master of graphic layout and cinematic style, and the budget crunch that led him to use the same shot of Astro walking a dozen times an episode also led to many ingenious and creative camera angles, screen divisions, and dreamlike abstracts which are a visual feast for any animation or film buff." Palmer further notes that the series "also preserves most of Tezuka’s quirky sense of humor, often pausing in the middle of a conversation to watch an engineer get his giant nose caught in a pipe or bounce along the floor like a balloon.”

The cartoon followed the comic closely both in style and story, featuring episodes specifically based on arcs from the comic. Furthermore, in some ways the series’ low budget actually helped it stay true to the overall feel of the Astro Boy manga. The choppy animation partially captured the still-panel nature of the comic and evoked an innocent, childlike feel characteristic of Astro Boy himself. The character also stayed perfectly true to the comic. Especially as compared to the 2003 series, in which Astro Boy was made to speak and act more like a teenager, in this cartoon he is decidedly boyish. This is the classic and definitive imagining of Astro Boy for television.

The series was remade in the 1980s with a bigger budget and improved visuals, the most notable upgrade being that the cartoon was in color and no longer featured eight-frame-per-second animation. It had its own problems, though. Palmer explains, “It suffers most from the network pressures to give every episode a happy ending, and even the darker characters like Astro’s creator Dr. Tenma are toned down and made toothlessly wholesome." Palmer also notes, "Where the series fails to seriously treat racism, it triumphs at [its] other theme, the progress of technology and the importance of using it well.” So, with the updated look came storylines that were somewhat diluted. It remains a fun but weakened imagining of the Astro Boy story.

Then there was a series released in 2003. This show was made after Tezuka’s death in 1989 and thus lacks his oversight and input, but it nevertheless has some positive attributes. Palmer tells us, “It is fully worth watching just to see Astro soar through a spectacular techno-utopian cityscape of flying cars and space-age arcologies that fully lives up to Tezuka’s original sketches.” There are some downsides to the series, though. “Sadly for US audiences, the English dub made some very unfortunate changes,” Palmer says. “Astro has been dubbed to sound significantly older than he does in the original, about fourteen instead of abut six, and his language has been made rougher and more aggressive. ... Astro’s dark relationship with Dr. Tenma is also toned down a bit, the dub having Astro refer to him as 'my creator' where the original used 'father.'” While the 2003 show looked much better than its predecessors and featured better storytelling than the 1980s show, it was still lacking in some of the basic written elements of Astro Boy.

It remains to be seen whether David Bowers’ Astro Boy feature film will be a faithful adaptation of the comic. However, it does promise to continue the visual upgrade that the series has undergone throughout the television series. The movie is fully CG-animated and looks to be a visual treat. Also, the footage that has been released reveals action sequences that show the film to be, at the least, not boring. It may be wishful thinking to hope for a movie that both provides a good time and retains the original comic’s intelligence, but there is always the possibility of a surprise. If nothing else, perhaps this film will spawn an interest in the character that has so much to offer Western culture but who has so far remained unable to effectively and enduringly penetrate the mainstream. Until then, we'll be shouting the original theme's lyrics from the sideline, "As you go, go, go Astro Boy!"