Astro's Mom Hoshie

[Prettywitchiusaka]

I sort fo have my own theory on this;

See, I sort of view Tenma as someone who life is very cruel towards. Yes, he is capable of loving people. But since he can't seem top let go of his selfishness, it drives him to neglect those he loves, taking them away from him before he even has a chance to make things right.

Ultimately, this is what I feel happened to Hoshie; in the beginning, she and Tenma were always together. True, he might have been a work-o-holic, but she found him to be loving and caring teh better she got to know him, and that's what made her love him aside from his awkwardness. BUt eventually, the feeling of neglect soon began to take hold one he became head of teh ministry, and didn't have as much time for eitehr her or Tobio.

It even got to the point where she was honestly beginning to wonder if he even loved them anymore. BUt before Tenma could even do anything, it was too late; eventually, it was revealed that she'd been diagnosed with Cancer, and eventually lost the battle.

As for why he didn't go crazy and try to create a robot of Hoshie, well...I honestly think it's because he still had Tobio at that point. At some point, Tenma realized that Tobio was the last person he loved that he hadn't lost, which kept him somewhat sane for awhile before his own child perished as well.

[AprilSeven]

Bingo! I'm in complete agreement with this!

Of course Tezuka has different "beginnings" for Astro, some which include Hoshi being alive when Tobio dies and Astro is created (such as the manga), and others (like the 60's, 80's and '03 anime and presumably the 2009 movie) where she is gone before Tobio perishes.

But your idea of Tenma's personality works for any of those storylines...

[Prettywitchiusaka]

Really? Thank you; It just sort fo makes sense to me really. It's his own selfishness that drove her away before he had any chance of hoping to fix what went wrong.

Also, for whatever reason, I get teh feeling that she would call him "Tarou-chan", a nickname he grows to tolerate the more he gets to know her.

[I-Am-Atom's-Sister]

whoa.
Mystery solved. My mind is at rest now.

[Prettywitchiusaka]

Well, it is just a hypothesis on my part.

[Lalapalooza]

It's his own selfishness that drove her away before he had any chance of hoping to fix what went wrong.

This quote I agree with and the rest of your idea I can see being an option, but then again I am just going off of the 2003 special edition "Secrets of the Birth of the Atom". Normally I would go whole heartily with what the manga says, but it obviously doesn't say much about it, so like natural I take the first real and full story as the truth.

[Prettywitchiusaka]

Thank you. Mind you, I'm really only basing thsi entirely on the 03 series, and I'm sure there's bound to to be otehr interpretations out there. This one just makes the most sense to me given Tenma's character in teh 03 series.