Astroboy on TV Tome

[DrFrag]

TV Tome finally has an entry for Astroboy.

So far it's only the 80s series, and only the Japanese release. The author is quite critical of the English dub, but personally I've only picked two inconsistencies caused by the change in episode order.

The episode guide is currently empty.

[jeffbert]

12. Damdam's Neck, 20. Pook in Cruciform Island, 24. The Biggest Robot on Earth (Part 1), 27. Major Operations by Black Jack, 28. The Great Adventure of Little Robot Sam, Rumy in Pochom-Pochom Island, 42. Hurry, You Three Second-Rate Knights, 48. Jinmen Iwa, 50. The Devil's Place in Ordin?

These titles are really weird!

12. Damdam's Neck? I thought he said "Daba Daba" perhaps "Dama Dama" thus being consistent with the ending of names using vowels.

20. Pook in Cruciform Island is not really so weird, as 'cruciform' island is really better than 'crucifix' island (manga). 'Pook' is the robot boy's name in the manga.

24. The Biggest Robot on Earth (Parts 1 & 2). I know this is wrong, the dispute had nothing to do with size, else why bother such a tiny robot as Atom(u)?<_<

27. Major Operations by Black Jack. Ok, Blackjack actor was there, but that was not his name in this series! <_<

28. The Great Adventure of Little Robot Sam. Ok, this must involve 'Hellywood' studios and the classic-G.I. Joe-sized stunt man. I thought him dancing with Uran(u)'s Barbie doll was really cute! :wahah: Reminded me of Land of the Giants!

Rumy in Pochom-Pochom Island. Lilly on Peligro Island. Mean ol' robot law will not allow our good hearted little hero go abroad with official government permission, and Dr. Elefun is away. :

42. Hurry, You Three Second-Rate Knights. I am stumped. I cannot think of what this one might be! :angry:

48. Jinmen Iwa. I am again stumped! :angry:

50. The Devil's Place in Ordin 'Ordin'? It must be 'Odin', and this involves that little Viking boy who shares the adult voice with Fireball. Poor kids!

[DrFrag]

Hehe, you're right, I only looked at the first few. Looks like he got his episode list from the Osamu Tezuka site. Unfortunately these episode names were never used in the English version. Here's the comparitive list, with the Japanese in bold and the English in brackets:

1. The Birth of Astroboy (1. The Birth of Astroboy)
2. Astroboy vs. Atlas (1. Birth of Astroboy)
3. The Robot Circus (2. Robot Circus)
4. Saving our Classmate (3. Save The Classmate)
5. Astroboy vs. Atlas II: The Resurrection of Atlas (10. Atlas Lives Again)
6. Robot Land (21. Robot Land)
7. Frankenstein (12. Frankenstein)
8. Red Cat (29. The Red Cat)
9. Astroboy vs. Atlas III: Crystal of the Desert (11. The Crystal of the Desert)
10. The Vehicle, White Planet (8. The White Planet)
11. The Robot President (31. A Robot President)
12. Damdam's Neck (47. Goliath's Head)
13. Lightning Man (35. The Light Ray Robot)
14. Tomboy Uran (13. Uran The Tomboy)
15. Robio and Robiet (44. Robio and Robiette)
16. Adventure on Mars (7. Astro Fights Aliens)
17. SOS on the Space Shuttle (5. Save The Carolina 3)
18. Astroboy vs. Atlas IV: The Menacing Comet (15. The Rainbow Comet)
19. The Devil's Balloon (49. The Death Balloon)
20. Pook in Cruciform Island (9. The Transformation Robot)
21. The Fool Ivan (30. The Wreck of the Titan)
22. The Robot Who Lied (43. The Liar Robot)
23. The Girl from Alsore (20. The Girl From Alsoar)
24. The Biggest Robot on Earth (Part 1) (50. The Greatest Robot In The World (part 1))
25. The Biggest Robot on Earth (Part 2) (51. The Greatest Robot In The World (part 2))
26. Astroboy vs. Atlas V: The Violent Gang Gadem (22. The Robot Vikings)
27. Major Operations by Black Jack (36. The Time Machine)
28. The Great Adventure of Little Robot Sam (34. The Robot Stuntman)
29. Astroboy vs. Atlas VI: The King of the Ice (23. The Great Meltdown)
30. Uran and Uran (27. Uran's Twin)
31. Dash in a Storm (14. Speeding Through The Storm)
32. Cleopatra's Mystery (46. The Return of Queen Cleopatra)
33. Astroboy vs. Atlas VII: The Runaway Subway (16. The Runaway Subway Train)
34. The Little Elephant Pura (6. The Baby Elephant Pook)
35. The Secret of Bee Island (35. The Secret of Bee City)
36. The Monster of Kuraken (17. The Monster of Clarken)
37. Rumy in Pochom-Pochom Island (24. Lily on Peligro Island)
38. Astroboy vs. Atlas VIII: The Destruction of the Satellite & The Proton Gun (41. The Anti-Proton Gun)
39. The Stolen Sun (37. The Man-Made Solar Sphere)
40. Black Looks (45. Blackie Young)
41. The Devil Garon (18. The Genie From Outer Space)
42. Hurry, You Three Second-Rate Knights! (19. The Robots Nobody Wanted)
43. Astroboy vs. Atlas IX: Atlas Forever (48. Atlas Forever)
44. Space Leopard (25. The Snow Leopard)
45. Uran's God (32. Uran's Quest)
46. Space Airport R45 (28. Outer Spaceport R45)
47. Spaceship in Imminent Danger (39. The Hijacked Airship)
48. Jinmen Iwa (26. The Human Faced Rock)
49. Uran Loves Hit Men (38. Uran Falls In Love)
50. The Devil's Place in Ordin (33. The World of Odin)
51. Rage of the Sphinx (40. The Secret of the Mayas)
52. Astroboy's First Love (4. Astro's First Love)

They should have left Black Jack's name alone in the English dub instead of calling him Dr Roget. Fortunately, translators these days are less afraid to use the real Japanese names for characters in anime.

I think the mis-translation of the word "Odin" is because it's a proper noun. For example, in the 1963 series in Japanese, episode 2 (rendered "Frankenstein" in the English dub) was called which translates directly as something like "franc Ken". Since there are no Japanese characters for the word "Frankenstein", they use a combination of phonetics that sound as close as possible to the English (or indeed German) pronounciation.
In the case of "Odin", I suppose the closest they could get came out as "Ordin". Maybe they translated it from "or din", phonetically similar but still using regular words.

We see the same thing in the title of episode 48. "Jinmen Iwa" but in reverse. This is obviously a Romanised Japanese name; the actual name of the rock with a face like a human. In English we look at the words Jinmen Iwa and think "what?" - you won't find Jinmen Iwa in an English dictionary. So when they translate it, they could either choose to use the title Jinmen Iwa (phonetic translation of the proper noun), or words that describe what Jinmen Iwa is. They went with the description (The Human-Faced Rock). It's just like if they had translated Frankenstein into Japanese by naming him "the monster with bolts in its neck". It contains no proper nouns and each word can be easily translated.

Interestingly, Alta Vista's Babelfish can handle the translation of Odin correctly, but not Frankenstein. I think there must be several ways of going about translating these things. (someone correct me if I'm wrong about this stuff)

And I have to laugh at episode 49. "Uran Loves Hit Men".

[jeffbert]

Last night I watched the 8th of nine tape series, and the poor little liar robot also suffers from an obviously adult woman's feeble attempt at a little boy's voice. It is identical to Fireball and Viking boy's.

[DrFrag]

The entire voice cast was provided by 12 people and there were at least 200 characters with speaking roles. It would be interesting to know who did which voices.

[jeffbert]

Hai!

[snorkyller]

Thank's for your list Dr Frag

But maybe there's a mistake for the english version (in brackets)


There's no episode #42

There's 2 episodes #35:
35. The Light Ray Robot
35. The Secret of Bee City

One of these episode should be the #42 episode...
Which one?

[DrFrag]

Oops, sorry! Episode 42 is The Secret of Bee City.

[snorkyller]

Thanks....

[snorkyller]

Originally posted by DrFrag@Jun 12 2003, 02:28 AM
[b]20. Pook in Cruciform Island (9. The Transformation Robot) [/b]

It must be an error....

I can find out what's the episode number of "The Transformation Robot" in the japanese list.

Can you tell me?

Thanks