Astro Boy stars in commerical for Tokyo

[merlot]

I just saw a commerical for Tokyo that stars Astro Boy. They used an obscure, video game character to promote their city to Americans. Odd choice but cool for geeks like us to recognize it.

[ChoiceStriker]

Hi Merlot,

 

Because of the nature of communication on the internet, it's impossible to tell whether someone's being sarcastic or genuine, so if your post was intended as tongue-in-cheek, then forgive me for posting this. But in case you didn't know, Astro Boy has been a cultural phenomenon in Japan for decades, where he's known as Tetsuwan Atom.

 

The character is the creation of Osamu Tezuka, Japan's so-called "God of Manga," who is almost single-handedly responsible for the wide-eyed look of most manga and anime characters. Here's a link to some more info about Astro Boy on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astro_Boy

 

And here's a picture of me with Astro Boy in 2001 at the Osamu Tezuka museum in Kyoto Station:

 

 

On the left is Black Jack, another of Tezuka's creations.

 

Again, forgive me if you already knew all this and were just being funny.

[merlot]

No sarcasim in my post. I knew Astro Boy was more popular in Japan, though I did not know to what extent. However, over here he is relatively obscure to the general population.

 

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

[ChoiceStriker]

Ah, I guess I did sort of misinterpret your original post. Of course he is relatively more obscure in America than in Japan, but there are probably many here, too, who remember him from the 1960's cartoon.

[heavy liquid]

There was a new "Tetsuwan Atom" series that debuted in Japan in 2003, and was shown on Kids WB! and Cartoon Network last year, as well. It never seemed to take off, unfortunately, as I haven't heard about it or seen it in a while. There's also a live-action big budget Astro Boy movie that was originally announced in 1999 from Sony, and keeps getting delayed. Astro Boy would be CGI, and everything else would have been live action. I have a feeling that they were hoping the animated series might take off, and then they would follow up with the movie. I doubt it'll ever happen, now.

[Jordan_E]

Didn't like Astro Boy as a kid and that opinion hasn't changed over the years. I was more of a Looney Tunes kinda guy! :rock I have a friend who works in anime in Japan and he swore Astro Boy would be Big here. Uh-huh.