Customer Reviews

Astro Boy (Volume 3)

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Volume 3 of Astro Boy is special for a couple of reasons.

First, as Tezuka tells us himself in the introduction, the novel-length story "The Greatest Robot on Earth" that comprises most of this volume is one of his most popular Astro Boy stories. It's a children's comics classic about the world's seven strongest robots, and like all Tezuka works has a number of themes and messages buried beneath the surface. It's excellent reading for kids, Tezuka fans, and adults interested in the comics medium in general.

Second, "The Greatest Robot on Earth" inspired a recent manga called Pluto, which has been running in Japan since 2003, won numerous awards and is drawing comparisons to such graphic novel greats as Alan Moore's Watchmen. Pluto is by Naoki Urasawa, famous for his long, intelligent and realistic mystery and sci-fi thrillers Monster and 20th Century Boys. Viz is scheduled to start publishing Pluto in English in February 2009. Having read most of Pluto myself, I can say that it is a marvel of modern manga storytelling that re-imagines "The Greatest Robot on Earth" and makes it darker, more adult, and more complex. It's fascinating to read this volume and Pluto together to see how Urasawa took inspiration from Tezuka's adventure story and expanded on its characters and universe (Pluto has run 50-odd chapters as of mid-2008).

If you only ever buy one volume of Astro Boy, make it this one.

"Astro Boy (Volume 3)" reprints one of the most popular stories in the Astro Boy saga, that of his struggles against the mighty Pluto, a super-robot designed to duel and destroy Earth's seven most powerful robots. Astro Boy, or course, is number seven on the list.

Pluto has long been depicted as Astro Boy's Arch Enemy, and any action shots of Astro Boy are likely to be seen in battle with this mighty horned robot. One by one, Pluto tackles and destroys the greatest robots from several countries, such as Mont Blanc from France, Hercules from Greece, as well as champions from Australia, Germany and Scotland. In order to challenge Pluto, Astro Boy has his power increased to 1 million horsepower. Will it be enough?

As well as a good story, "Astro Boy (Volume 3)" is a glimpse into Tezuka Osamu's soul. Unable to make Pluto completely evil, he redeems the murderous robot with a sense of honor and responsibility, as well as a desire for the friendship of Astro Boy's sister, Uran. As with all of Tezuka's stories, there is more going on under the surface, as the struggle to build a more and more powerful robot becomes a metaphor for the nuclear arms race of the 1950s Cold War.

Also included in this volume is a short story, "Mad Machine," where an evil scientist creates a device that makes all machines, from clocks to Astro Boy, go berserk. He uses the machine to extort 2 billion yen from the robots of the world. Of course, such a scheme could never work with Astro Boy around!

In this volume, you will find two stories. The first, 'The Greatest Robot On Earth', takes up most of the book and forms the basis for Naoki Urasawa's 'Pluto' (you have to start here, if you don't already know of this masterpiece Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka, Vol. 1). In the 'Greatest', a mad dictator helped by a mad scentist builds Pluto, what he thinks will be the 'Greatest Robot On Earth'. Pluto has to kill 7 robots that could pretend to the title of 'Greatest Robot On Earth'. Will Astro Boy, who is among the 7 others robots, survive the challenge and if yes, at what a price? The second story also deals with science gone mad: someone has built a device to drive all machines crazy. How will Astro Boy, himself a machine, manage to put everything right? Tezuka's Astro Boy is considered a masterpiece and laid the foundations for mangas as we now know them. If you have but a fleating interest in comics, do not miss this volume (and Urasawa's 'Pluto').

In the early 1960's, Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy was at the height of its popularity. During this time, he wrote the story," The Greatest Robot on Earth", a story about a former sultan trying to use a super robot named Pluto to destroy the seven most powerful robots in the world. It was up to Astro Boy to save the day, but this time it was different. It is hard to distinguish the ending as happy or sad, since elements of both are present. Still, Takashi Nagasaki said in his postscript at the end of "Pluto" that he thinks that the ending shows that Astro is the first robot to realize how meaningless war is. Overall, that sums up the ending very well. The beginning and middle of the story is equally well done.
At the end of the volume, there is an extra story, "Mad Machine", that is about an evil scientist who makes a machine that can make robots go haywire. During the machine's 3-minute break, Astro needs to destroy it. This is a nice short story to round out the volume. Overall, this is one volume you can't miss.

This is one of the most loved Astro Boy stories in the sieres, that goes for Japan and America, however The characters in this story are extremely flat. Its easy for the reader to see that Pluto is conflicted about whether his mission is right, but the emotions are hardly convincing. The plot in itself is also rather bland, especially at the end when the scientists reveals that he built Bora and had him fight Pluto to show the Sultan that fighting was not the answer. It left me thinking "Wait.. What?". I'd hate to say it given Tezuka's status and all, but if you want the same story told the right way, Get ahold of the "Pluto" sieres. Its based off of this Manga and done in a much more convincing and lively manner.

Q: Do you have a male preteen, who likes Pokemon, Yugioh, cartoons, owns at least two game systems (handhelds count) and knows what anime is?

A: Yes.

Stop here and buy the series. Don't ask why, or is it valuable, beneficial or even engage in the debate about the academic merits of comic books, or graphic novels. I could tell you it is a Japanese classic, on par with Superman, that it may be a collectors item in the future or it is an engaging series with complex subplots for this age group.

That doesn't matter.

You only need to know that if you buy it:

1. He is reading
2. He is reading
3. He is not playing a video game
4. He is reading
5. He is not arguing or fighting with a sibling
6. He is not watching TV like a mindless drone
7. He is reading
8. He will want to read other graphic novels.

This is one of the best Astro Boy Managa.The Astro Boy managa our good for kids and are funny.This one about Astro Boy fighting Pluto and Pluto fighting 7 other robots.