From the back cover:
A timeless comics and animation classic, Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy is still going strong half a century after its creation, winning over readers of all ages with its combination of action, wit, and humanity. In the novel-length “The Greatest Robot on Earth,” a wealthy sultan creates a giant robot to become the ruler of all other robots on Earth. But in order for that to happen, he must defeat the seven most powerful robots in the world, including Astro Boy, who must have his horsepower raised from 100,000 to 1,000,000 to face the challenge! And Astro’s sister, Uran, also flies in to lend a helping hand! Plus, in “Mad Machine,” a scientist invents a device that causes other machines to go berserk, and Astro Boy must save the day!

Review:
Well, I can certainly see why someone would want to create a series elaborating on “The Greatest Robot on Earth.” There’s a lot going on and some surprisingly sympathetic robots. In his introduction, Tezuka says that he created this story during a period (1964-1965) when he was really enjoying his work. I think it shows, since even though there are still robot battles and dastardly caped villains, the potential to say something about the plight of robots isn’t squandered as it has been in other stories.

Once upon a time, there was a sultan who was ousted from power and exiled from his land. Still ambitious, he hired a roboticist to create a robot, Pluto, that would defeat other powerful robots and declare itself king of the robots, allowing the sultan to get his vicarious power fix. Pluto polishes off his first opponent in short order, but by the time he’s met the second, his personality is starting to come through. “I have no hatred of you but my master has ordered me to destroy you and I must obey him,” he says, before engaging in one of the cooler robot battles in the series so far.

Pluto also encounters Astro’s sister Uran when she tries to trick him by impersonating Astro, and actually strikes up a friendship with her, inquiring about how she’s doing and even allowing her to plaster his chest with some of her favorite stickers (my very favorite panel in this volume). His opponents are pretty sympathetic, too. The one that sticks out in my mind is Epsilon, who worked with and was beloved by children. Even when he was defeated, there’s a neat panel of his hands still clutching a kid who’d wandered too near the duel.

Throughout the story, Doctor Ochanomizu keeps telling Astro that the truly great robot is not the one with the most horsepower but rather the one who helps people. Pluto’s attempts to achieve greatness through fighting will never succeed, but when Astro boy finally convinces him to help avert a volcanic explosion, at that point, Pluto really has achieved greatness. It’s kind of deep, actually. Pluto’s whole character arc is surpisingly touching.

To say that I’m really looking forward to seeing what Naoki Urasawa does with this concept would be a profound understatement.

Book description:
As Mickey Mouse is to American animation, so to anime and manga is Astro Boy, the quintessential creation of Osama Tezuka, one of the world’s revered giants of comics and animation. In this volume, Astro Boy comes to the aid of Gravia’s robot president to prevent his overthrow at the hands of a secret anti-robot society; a robot magician is cloned as a setup to start a movement against intelligent robots, and only Astro Boy can expose the conspiracy; and Astro Boy defends a powerful robot racecar from an evil gang in the globe-spanning Equator Race! Astro Boy is an all-ages delight, as fresh, exciting, and innovative today as when it was created forty years ago. Everything is Go, Astro Boy!

Review:
The three stories in this volume, “His Highness Deadcross,” “The Third Magician,” and “White Planet,” were originally published in 1960, 1961, and 1963. I should mention here that the stories in the 23-volume collection upon which Dark Horse modeled their release are not presented in chonological order. Rather, Tezuka and the Japanese publisher decided on the best order, and then Tezuka wrote little introductory bits to put each story in context. These sometimes also include digs at Americans and how they reacted adversely to violence in the Astro Boy cartoon but were totally fine with “going over to southeast Asia and killing people.”

The premise of “His Highness Deadcross” sounds good: a robot has been elected president, thanks to a large turnout from robot voters, and some humans aren’t too happy about this. In reality, though, it’s kind of boring. I like the ideas it raises, like robots with voting rights and the ability to create more robots without human assistance, but most of the focus is on the campy villain and his attempts to force the president to resign. Seriously, this guy wears a cape, a plumed helmet, and has dialogue like, “It’s curtains for you.”

The other two stories are pretty good, though. In “The Third Magician,” a famous robot magician is cloned and then the clone is used as an art thief. He makes a public announcement about how at such and such a time, he will arrive and steal his target. I’ve certainly seen that done in other series, so now I wonder if Tezuka is responsible for the phantom thief genre, too! In “White Planet,” a boy’s beloved robocar is saved by the electronic brain of the robot who he thought was his sister. The boy spends no time mourning her loss or freaking out that she was a robot, but then again, he evidently enjoyed smacking her around, so he’s kind of a git anyway.

Astro Boy continues to be a quick read, and I like it well enough that at the present moment I’m inclined to keep going with it past the point that’ll prepare me to understand Pluto.

From the back cover:
Created by the late Osamu Tezuka, Astro Boy was the first manga series to be adapted to animation and became a worldwide phenomenon, making Astro Boy the Mickey Mouse of anime—a jet-powered, super-strong, evil-robot-bashing, alien-invasion-smashing Mickey Mouse, that is! Exciting, whimsical, and touching, Astro Boy hearkens back to the classic era of comics and animation, featuring stories that readers young and old will enjoy.

Review:
I confess that I didn’t have a whole lot of interest in Astro Boy until Viz’s acquisition of Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto—based on a story in the third Astro Boy volume—was announced. In fact, I’m reading it now so I can fully appreciate Pluto, but I must say that it’s better than I’d expected.

There are three stories in this volume, two from 1961 and one (“The Birth of Astro Boy”) written in 1975 that explains Astro’s origins. This last, as well as some introductory bits to the other stories, features Tezuka talking about his stories and even admitting that there are some that he doesn’t care for much. It actually works pretty well.

The longer of the two stories from 1961, “The Hot Dog Corps,” is about a group of cyborg soldiers who used to be dogs. Their canine instincts keep returning, like the desire to chew on shoes or squirm around scratching their backs in doggy ectasy, and one cyborg in particular, who used to belong to Astro Boy’s teacher, feels the inexplicable urge to fly to Japan and see his former master. The concept is quite interesting, but I felt the story went on a bit too long. If it were shorter, it could’ve been more poignant. That said, I like how it ended.

The second story, “Plant People,” is far shorter and basically tells the tale of some robot invaders from a dying planet who were programmed to steal Earth’s water. There’s not much more to say about that one.

Astro Boy is a really quick read and generally enjoyable, though there are a few things that had me snerking. One is the villain who describes at length, while nobody is around, what throwing a certain switch will do. Giving one of the good guys time to come and foil his evil plans, of course. Another is Astro’s tendency to use the phrase “This must be _____.” Here’s a quiz:

Which of these sentences is not used in this volume?

This must be _________.
a. some sort of door.
b. the way it defends against intruders.
c. the power source for that giant robot we met earlier.
d. love.

Okay, perhaps that was too easy.

Also, Astro’s propensity for walking into unfamiliar situations and rapidly deducing all sorts of things reminds me of Conan from Case Closed. And, in fact, the kindly scientist who takes Conan in after he is forcibly de-aged looks a lot like the kindly scientist who takes Astro in after his creator kicks him out for failing to be his son. I can only assume this is intentional.

I’ll at least be reading through volume three, and will probably give it a chance beyond that to see if Astro Boy is something I really want to continue with.