Astro Boy

is a Japanese television series that premiered on Fuji TV on New Year's Day, 1963 (a Tuesday), and is the first popular animated Japanese television series that embodied the aesthetic that later became familiar worldwide as anime. It originated as a manga of the same name in 1952 by Osamu Tezuka, revered in Japan as the "God of Manga". It lasted for four seasons, with a total of 193 episodes, the final episode presented on a Saturday, New Year's Eve 1966. At its height it was watched by 40% of the Japanese population who had access to a TV. In 1964, there was a feature-length animated movie called released in Japan. It was compiled from three selected episodes from the series—episodes 46 ("The Robot Spaceship"), 56 ("Earth Defense Army") and 71 ("The Last Day of Earth"), respectively. The latter two were filmed and produced in color. Between 1963 and 1965, 104 episodes were aired in the United States, adapted to the English language. After enjoying success both in Japan and abroad as the first anime to be broadcast overseas, Astro Boy was remade in the 1980s under the name New Mighty Atom and again in 2003 as Astro Boy: Mighty Atom. Plot The first Astro Boy anime is set in the year 2013, rather than 2003 of the original manga. Dr. Tenma, a scientist working in the Ministry of Science's Department of Precision Machinery, loses his only son, Tobio, in a car-crash. Out of grief, he orders the production of a "super-robotic" in Tobio's likeness. Though the robotic is the most advanced anyone has ever seen, he is not pleased with it because it does not grow, and in a fit of rage he sells it to the circus. After this, he loses his job at the Ministry of Science and rarely appears again. He harnesses a complicated relationship towards robotics, mainly believing that they should not be treated as humans but as slaves.