astro boy omnibus 1 Reviews 

A Classic Returns With A New Printing In “Astro Boy Omnibus Volume 1” [Review]

By | September 25th, 2015
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

Astro Boy is one of the most iconic characters in pop culture. This week, Dark Horse released the first omnibus of Osamu Tezuka’s beloved series. This is where the journey begins and where you’ll fall in love with this character. Read on for our spoiler free review of “Astro Boy Omnibus Volume 1”.

Written by Osamu Tezuka
Illustrated Osamu Tezuka

Nearly 700 pages!
Built by a brilliant scientist to replace his lost son, but with powers beyond imagination, Astro Boy fights for the oppressed and helpless—human, alien, or robot. Created by Osamu Tezuka, “Japan’s Walt Disney,” Astro Boy is action-packed, classic fun for all ages, now featured in value-priced omnibus editions!
*The late Osamu Tezuka is renowned internationally as a master cartoonist, animator, and storyteller.
*Inspiration for three animated series and the 2009 feature film.
“Tezuka is widely considered the most important and influential figure in post–World War II Japanese animation.”—New York Times

“Astro Boy” was created by Osamu Tezuka and launched 1951. Spanning over 23 volumes, the first omnibus collects the first 8 volumes. At over 600 pages, this book is a behemoth but it’s one of the best ways to get into the big wide world of manga. “Astro Boy Omnibus Volume 1” is a beautiful story with gorgeous art that is not as light as it seems on it’s surface.

The first story within this omnibus introduces us to Astro Boy and gives us his origin story. In a futuristic world, humans live with robots. Robots started as helpers to the humans but as technology progressed robots evolved. They gained personalities, intelligence (going so far to attend school), and looked more like humans. Laws were passed that robots had to abide by to keep humans as the dominant race. Dr. Tenma, the head of the Ministry of Science loses his son Tobio in a terrible car accident and in his grief, he builds a new android modeled after his son. After some time, he realizes that his android is never going to age like a human child and he discards him. Tobio ends up working at a circus until Professor Ochanomizu finds him and turns him into Astro Boy. Astro Boy then helps people in a superhero capacity but also takes part in some major events in the world.

Over the last few months I’ve gotten into manga and anime in a way that I’ve never been before. This is why I was so excited to have the opportunity to read and review “Astro Boy”. Thankfully the hype was not an exaggeration. “Astro Boy” is an incredibly smart book that gets into some very heavy themes but remains a charming and quite funny story. Astro Boy as a character is fairly naive because he is a child. There’s something very sweet about him but As the story goes on, he becomes much more aware of how things are in the world. Tezuka’s greatest creation is similar to that of Pinocchio, someone who isn’t a “real boy” but still has the good qualities of humans so he truly is a special android. He’s one of the most iconic androids and influences so much of what we see later on in pop culture. A movie like Ex Machina, for example can trace some of it’s roots to “Astro Boy”. A robot with a good soul is something we’ve become almost bored of by now but it’s Tezuka who helped pave the way for it and it did with a sweet sensibility that tied into Japanese politics in a way that no one else has ever done.

Ochanomizu is a true father figure to him and it would be easy for him to take full advantage of Astro Boy but he loves him. As Astro Boy gets into fights and deals with huge problems, like fighting off an army of robots that want to destroy the moon, Ochanomizu is concerned with Astro Boy’s well being. However, there’s this great mirror image in father figures within Tenma who comes across as a Dr. Frankenstein like character.

“Astro Boy” is dense and it has this clever sweetness that covers up the major themes it plays with. Astro Boy is a sweet kid but under his adventures there’s an examination of humanity, war and violence. Astro Boy was written not too long after World War II ended so it shouldn’t come as a completely shock that these are the themes that are examined. Within these chapters there is a lot said about robot rights and the lengths that humans go for the sake of technological exploration. The nuclear bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened less than 10 years before this series started and that plays into the development of technology in this version of the world. That was an example of technology gone too far (depending on your world view) and while Astro Boy is a good android who does heroic things there are robots used for harm. We see that in the first story when a woman angry about what happened to her family takes dogs and makes them into an android army to aid her in blowing up the moon. There’s a lot unpacked in regards to humanity as well with the need for robot rights. Despite someone like Astro Boy doing so much good, there’s resistance by humans to see the robots they’ve created as something more than tools. Tezuka made something here that appeals to adults and children by not talking down to the reader but by also teaching us something that matters.

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Tezuka does all the art in “Astro Boy” but because this a reprint, there are some shifts in the way pages come across. Some pages have very thick inks that can take away from enjoying the art. There is a story later in the book that has this problem. As Astro Boy fights a massive robot, that robot’s design is lost in the inks. Other pages have the opposite problem due to the reprinting and they come across as a bit too light and you can lose some of the work Tezuka did but that comes with the territory of reprinting something as old as “Astro Boy”. Aside from these issues, Tezuka’s art is just wonderful. It’s full of life and you can see the kind of influence it has in later work. The character designs are really fun with exaggerated movements and expressions. Ochanomizu’s hair is silly and Tenma’s reaction to Astro Boy is cruel but so big that it fits the typical mad scientist archetype we’re now very accustomed to seeing. Astro Boy captures so much innocence of childhood and there’s a visual shift, particularly in his eyes, when he’s in action fighting against other robots who mirror him. The other robots he fights are typically less cute and much more massive and it makes for really fun and dynamic sequences. The inking, as mentioned, varies but when it’s works, it creates great shadows. There is sometimes a resistance from readers to read manga because of the lack of color but the inking works in a similar way to colors in, for example, an American comic book. Depending on the skill of the artist, the inks determine the tone of the story and Tezuka, for the most part, does a great job at this.

At over 600 pages long, “Astro Boy Omnibus Volume 1” is at the very least a fantastic value. This truly lives up to all the praise that’s been heaped upon it and a perfect gateway to manga.

Final Verdict: 8.9- A beautiful and complex story. I can’t wait to read more.


Jess Camacho

Jess is from New Jersey. She loves comic books, pizza, wrestling and the Mets. She can be seen talking comics here and at Geeked Out Nation. Follow her on Twitter @JessCamNJ for the hottest pro wrestling takes.

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