Lemme start this with a confession. I'm a bit of a fanatic for Tezuka's Astro Boy. And I went out of my way to find the new series released in Japan to coincide with 'Atom's birth.' "The birthday celebration will start in Takadanobaba where, according to the original story by the late Osamu Tezuka, Astro Boy was created on April 7, 2003, in a fictitious laboratory."
You can tell Sony was hoping that Astro whould catch on in America like it had decades ago. They were dubbing the new show into english as they made the episodes for broadcast in Japan. The show started out on Kid's WB: "The series is scheduled to run on the 2003-2004 series, starting in September." And then moved on to Cartoon Network: "The new Astro Boy series will debut on Cartoon Network's Toonami block on Monday, March 8, at 5:00 pm, replacing SD Gundam. In April, Astro Boy will return to Kids WB after being on hiatus since February." But kids just didn't get it, and Astro went into permenent hiatus from the airwaves.
With 29 outta 50 episodes unaired Sony did the only thing it could do. Move Astro into the DVD market. The series was dumped into a box set with very little extras or care. I just got mine, and it breaks my heart to see it like this. But it's also kinda nice to get the whole show in one go...
Sony's Astro Boy site
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