Osamu Tezuka reshaped Japanese popular culture along with his manga “Astro Boy.” In a future world, Japanese science minister Dr. Tenma loses his son Tobio in a automobile accident. He recreates Tobio as an android, Astro (often known as Atom within the authentic Japanese). The manga is a futuristic reimagining of “Pinocchio” that turns into a superhero story.
You possibly can hint Japan’s love affair with robots to “Astro Boy” — fashionable mecha and shonen manga/anime would not exist with out it. Regardless of being foundational in Japan, Astro Boy is not a lot of an icon in the USA. One try and import him, a 2009 CGI animated “Astro Boy” image from Imagi Animation Studios, failed and left Imagi underwater.Â
Imagi was based in Hong Kong in 2000, first producing the 2002 CGI cartoon sequence “Zentrix.” In 2007, they secured a three-picture distribution take care of Warner Bros — the primary fruit of that deal was the 2007 animated “TMNT” movie. “TMNT” was successful, so Imagi moved onto image no. 2: “Astro Boy.”Â
The film was directed by David Bowers, the co-director of Dreamworks claymation movie “Flushed Away,” already not one in every of that studio’s greatest movies. (Since “Astro Boy” failed, Bowers has solely directed live-action “Diary of a Wimpy Child” movies.) The overqualified voice solid contains Freddie Highmore, Invoice Nighy, the late Donald Sutherland, and Nicolas Cage as Dr. Tenma.
“Astro Boy” is reported to have price $65 million, however solely took in $42 million on the field workplace when it premiered in October 2009. By February 2010, Imagi had filed for chapter. Does “Astro Boy” deserve a second probability? Is it a forgotten masterpiece awaiting reappraisal? Nope, audiences had it proper on the primary name with this one.
2009’s Astro Boy didn’t recapture the Tezuka magic
The 2009 “Astro Boy” makes sweeping modifications to the supply materials, seemingly within the identify of a extra “common” movie. The character names are Americanized; Tobio turns into Toby, Umataro Tenma turns into Invoice Tenma, and Dr. Ochanomizu turns into Dr. Elefun. The setting can also be modified from twenty first century Japan to a post-apocalyptic future, the place the wealthy stay on the floating “Metro Metropolis” above the polluted floor. (This all feels nearer to “WALL-E” and “Battle Angel Alita” than “Astro Boy.”)
The script fuels itself with broad children film archetypes, and like Imagi’s different movies, the CGI is drab and primitive. (The tactility of “Astro Boy” is on-par with “Toy Story,” a film fourteen years older.) The flat animation waters down Tezuka’s distinctive character designs; evaluate “Astro Boy” with 2001’s underrated anime movie “Metropolis,” which stunningly introduced his world into 2-D animation.
“Astro Boy” does have one really uncommon function — a phoned-in Nicolas Cage efficiency. This man would go on to provide among the rawest on=display performances of grief I’ve ever seen in “Mandy” and “Pig.” As Tenma, he is solely going via the motions.
Principally, so far as reimagining the Mighty Atom goes, Imagi’s “Astro Boy” isn’t any “Pluto.” Drawn by Naoki Urasawa, “Pluto” retold “Astro Boy” arc “The Biggest Robotic In The World” as a cyber-noir detective story — learn my overview of “Pluto” right here. (And sure, the Dr. Tenma in Urasawa’s horror-thriller manga “Monster” is known as after the one in “Astro Boy.”)
As a result of failure of “Astro Boy,” Imagi’s plans for extra silver display manga/anime diversifications have been left unrealized. We must always most likely be grateful that they have been.
Astro Boy was the final Imagi Studios film
“Astro Boy” has an open ending, with Astro flying off to face an alien monster that got here out of nowhere to assault Metro Metropolis. Clearly, no sequel adopted, however the movie ends with room for extra. Whereas “Astro Boy” was in manufacturing, Imagi already had their subsequent two movies within the works. One can be “Gatchaman,” an adaptation of the Nineteen Seventies anime a few five-person “science ninja” superhero group. (“Gatchaman” is the unique “Tremendous Sentai,” aka the unique Japanese model of the present People know as “Energy Rangers.”) Imagi’s “Gatchaman” was far sufficient alongside for a two minute teaser to be launched (see beneath). When the studio went below, although, the movie went too.
Imagi was additionally planning “T28,” an adaptation of the different OG Japanese robotic franchise: Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s manga “Tetsujin-28,” in regards to the son of a scientist who wields a remote-controlled robotic. (The sequence was launched as “Gigantor” within the U.S.) Like “Gatchaman,” a teaser is all that got here of “T28.”
The demo reel of former Imagi animator Mak Ching Lok additionally signifies the studio might have needed to adapt “Trigun,” Yasuhiro Nightow’s house western manga/anime. The reel contains an unfinished and uncolored section of “Trigun” hero Vash The Stampede sauntering as much as a bar and asking for a drink refill. No different particulars of any potential “Trigun” film from Imagi have emerged.
In 2023, Studio Orange produced a brand new “Trigun” anime — “Trigun: Stampede” — that renders Nightow’s world with 3-D CGI animation. On that alone, Imagi was forward of its time. With “Astro Boy,” they weren’t.
