do i need to watch the 60s astro to understand the 80s astro?

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ASTROBUDDY
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Postby ASTROBUDDY » 10 years ago

"Tetsuwan Penguin" wrote:I see what you mean and don’t disagree with that. Perhaps "dumbed" was the wrong word and "tamed" would have been better as the goal was to make it more acceptable to kids by their parents. In Japan the whole family would watch the show, but in the US just the kids.


Well, I can't account for every household, but I think my mother may have watched an episode or two with my brothers and I. Remember when "Astro Boy" first premiered in the US, it first aired in NYC @ 7:00p.m. on Saturdays. But I guess you are probably right about Japan as over there he became a national hero.
"Toned down" as regards the violence. Other than the changes I mentioned above in my last post, the adaptation was reasonably faithful to the original. Here is a for instance. When the second volume of the collector's edition came out. I was looking forward to seeing "The Moon Monsters" and was a little disappointed that the English version was not in color. (Unlike some on this site I prefer not to have to read my cartoons.) While watching and comparing the English dub VS. the subtitled version, one cannot help but notice how close the dub is to the original Japanese. Except for a word here and there being changed (ex. miles instead of meters, etc.) the English dub is very close to the Japanese.

In this episode there is a perfect example of some cultural differences. In the Japanese original, Number 7 and Number 5 are named after two historical Japanese who are known to every Japanese as great feuding rivals. (Any one also familiar with "The Samurai Trilogy" starring Toshiro Mifune would know the historical rivals.) For the American version the feuding families, the Hatfields and the McCoys were lampooned as Number 7 is named Philbert Capfield and Number 5 is Tex McCue. (That's another difference the American version added a lot more humor to the dialog and exposition than was found in the Japanese original.)

So while the American version has some differences, I think they presented Tezuka's message extremely well to non-Japanese or else it would not have been as popular as it was.
Last edited by ASTROBUDDY on Sun Jul 14, 2013 3:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Postby Tetsuwan Penguin » 10 years ago

There is no doubt that Astro was presented as more violent in the Japanese original, and that got worse in the last season that wasn't seen in the US. He may have even been portrayed as committing a homicide in one of them.
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Postby Little Brown Fox » 10 years ago

Now if only they could have done that with the 2003 version... I wouldn't even mind if they didn't change the cultural references at all; I think this version was supposed to be a little more international, anyways...

Whoops, post at the same time much? Anyways... wow, really? Which one? Because I think that all of the instances that I mentioned were supposed to be viewed as cartoon violence, like you said (a bit different than how the West portrays it, though- then again, plenty of cartoons from that era were a lot more violent than today's cartoons, or even the 90's; for instance, murder and suicide were not just implied- there were plenty of direct references to them, and in earlier cartoons, these could even almost be seen).
Last edited by Little Brown Fox on Sun Jul 14, 2013 3:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby jeffbert » 10 years ago

As far as "dumbing down" goes, Ladd & co. changed dialogue to remove references to death; though I would not call that "dumbing down." Two examples come to mind:

1st, the TENMA TRIBE: When Ochanomizu explains Donguri's origin, it is clear that he is kneeling at his papa's grave; yet, the narrative says otherwise. Yes, the grave site is rather far away from the viewer, but anyone who had read the manga version will have no trouble recognizing it.

2nd, THE CLOCK TOWER MYSTERY: Dr. Hyde gives Heck Ben & Mari "Hata Mari" suicide pills that they are to use if caught. Mari's thoughts are shown visually, & it is clear that these are not memory erasing pills. When caught, she takes a tiny bite of the pill, & ends up hospitalized with an oxygen mask over her mouth. Again, kids eagerly accept the narrative explanation about the memory wipe pills. A while ago I asked WHITE LION about such instances of rewritten dialogue in KTWL, & he noted several. Kids were not to be exposed to the idea of human mortality or death back in those days. :astro:
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Postby Little Brown Fox » 10 years ago

Heck, even these days it's considered crossing a line. I've seen several instances of toeing the line, but no one has ever actually crossed it, to my knowledge.

It's stupid, really. I mean, violent death is one thing, but even things such as death due to injury or natural causes is played down by quite a bit.

Of course, I can understand the reasoning... but most kid's shows wouldn't have anything so terrible in it, anyways. Just references and implications... hmm.
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Postby Tetsuwan Atom » 10 years ago

"Little Brown Fox" wrote:Heck, even these days it's considered crossing a line. I've seen several instances of toeing the line, but no one has ever actually crossed it, to my knowledge.

It's stupid, really. I mean, violent death is one thing, but even things such as death due to injury or natural causes is played down by quite a bit.

Of course, I can understand the reasoning... but most kid's shows wouldn't have anything so terrible in it, anyways. Just references and implications... hmm.
If you go by most stupid cartoons from then and today sure and the fact that series like Avatar the last Airbender origanally wasn't even green light because it was considerd to be to violent.
No you gotta make stupid cartoons of pepole goofing around and talking childish and doing stupid things all the time it doesn't change although i think in the 80's and 90's they did a pretty good job at changing it a bit up i guess but since the 2000's they went downhill again.

but i din't ask for this version it happens to be the only one to go by in the West which shoudn't even be that way i did bought the second Japanese set for almost 200 Euro's !!! Why the hack woudn't they understand to just put it out the way it was supose to be.
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Postby Tetsuwan Penguin » 10 years ago

What's crazy is that many cartoons from the WB golden era had death scenes in them. A character would get shot with an arrow, fall into a grave and rise out of it with angel wings! A comic treatment for sure, but darn obvious.
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Postby Little Brown Fox » 10 years ago

The 90's were pretty awesome... and some mid-to-late 2000's cartoons weren't all that bad. I loved Legion of Super Heroes, and it had a reference to homicide in it. Sure, they called it "taking the life of another" or some flowery bull crap, but there's no denying what it was. They glossed it over, though; apparently clones or whatever that thing actually was don't count. And in the finale of the first season, one of them sacrificed himself to save them all. Heck, Brainiac 5 actually kills a gut in the first part of the finale of season two (which happened to be the finale of the entire series, thanks to the buyout, unfortunately- though I didn't know that at the time). He called it "deleting", but there was no escaping the fact that it was actually a (probably rather violent and painful, judging by the screaming) homicide.
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