"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.