Artificial Sun Ball

Volume 5 The Artificial Sun

In the preface to this story Osamu Tezuka tells about the editing and cutting that was necessary to put the stories in manga books. BBoth Atom and Kenichi visit him in his office, and ask a few questions pertaining to this subject. Incorporating these Q and A sessions into the comics themselves seems far more interesting than using a few paragraphs of text. Tezuka expresses his sadness about the necessitity to cut frames from his stories, tells us why he must do so (150-151).

Publication Data
Japanese Titles: Artificial Sun Ball; Fire Jar Island
Sequence: 35
Publication: Shonen
Publisher: Kobunsha
Publication sequence: 35
Publication Start: December 1959
Publication End: February 1960
Dark Horse volume: 5
Dark Horse Title: The Artificial Sun
Dark Horse Date: July 2002
Dark Horse pages: 149-212
Dark Horse ISBN: 1-56971-680-3
Dark Horse ISBN-13: 978-1-56971-680-9

Synopsis

A very large ball of flames plummets into the ocean, causing its temperature to rise drastically. World leaders convene to decide what action to take. They bring in the world famous Sherlock Holmespun to investigate the phenomenon to determine if it is the work of criminals. However, they assign an assistant to the detective, namely our little hero.

 

Characters: The Detective
Manga 1963 anime Jetter Mars anime 1980 anime
Sherlock Holmespun Sherlock Holmespun/
Shylock Holmes 		James Bond Sherlock Holmespun/
Randolph Holmes

Yet, the detective is not one who tolerates robots. He would much prefer to work only with humans, and has a rather dismal opinion of robots. Holmespun’s attitudes about robots are the prototype for those of Higeoyaji (Ban Shunsaku) (``Wally Kisagari’’ in the English version) in the 2003 series.

Kin Sankaku , the villain from the Crucifix Island story (see index), has returned and is once again, up to no good.

Characters: The Villain
Manga 1963 anime Jetter Mars anime 1980 anime
Kin Sankaku Kin Sankaku/
Elia Belial 		Kin Sankaku ?
He has acquired an artificial sun that Professor Ochanomizu had created, but abandoned when it was proven unsuited for its task.

 

Characters: The Sphere
Manga 1963 anime Jetter Mars anime 1980 anime
Solar Solar Freezing Solar
Now, he demands large sums of money or else he will use it to destroy anything that he pleases. As he valiantly attempts to remove the sphere, Atom becomes partially melted, losing both his arms and legs. However, he is far from finished, because unlikely though it is, he persuades another robot to attach its arms and legs to his body. He is thus able to defeat the villains and save the day.

When the detective insists that the scantily-clad hero clothe himself properly, he is irritated that the hero emerges from the clothier dressed in a child’s version of the same suite that the detective is wearing. In the 1963 version, this element was omitted; in the Jetter Mars version, the hero emerged from the store, only to realize that the detective had driven away, having hoped to rid himself of the annoying little robot. In Mars’ case, he cannot fly without transforming his scarf into his cape, and he needed to remove his clothes to do so.

 

Animated versions
  Number Title English Number English Title
1960s anime: 14 Artificial Sun 12  The Artificial Sun
Jetter Mars Anime: 12 Secret Agent James Bond1 -- --
1980s anime: 39 Stolen Sun 37* The Man-Made Solar Sphere
1. Source: google translation of http://www.geocities.jp/jetter_mars2015/arasuji1.html
*Original sequence only. The DVDs of the English-language version used a modified version of Japanese sequence, and placed this episode 38th in sequence.

1960s, One big disappointment is that Atom does not don a child-sized version of the detective’s suit.

 

Characters: The Hero in formal attire
Manga Jetter Mars anime 1980 anime
Manga 1980 anime 2003 anime
As with many of the B&W series’ stories, some time is spent on amusing animated humor that really has little if anything to do with the story. Thus, the 1963 animated version omitted a few elements of the comic story. Among those omitted elements, are the loss of his arms and legs, and Holmespun’s loss of his only remaining human part, his head.
Names
Japanese Dark Horse 1960s English Name Jetter Mars Name 1980s Name 1980s English Name
Sherlock Holmespun Sherlock Holmespun Shylock Holmes James Bond Sherlock Holmespun Randolph Holmes
Kin Sankaku Kim Sankaku Elia Belial Kin Sankaku ? ?
In all but the 1963 version, the villain shoots the detective in the head; however, he is not killed by this, but, rather has his human head replaced by a robotic head. Now he himself being a robot, finally sees the virtue of robots.

 

Characters: The Detective has become a robot
Manga Jetter Mars anime 1980 anime
Manga 1980 anime 2003 anime
The detective is a master of disguise, and easily assumes not only the facial characteristics of his subjects, but because he is a cyborg, he is able to shorten or lengthen his height and the lengths of his arms and legs by merely adding or removing pieces. Here, in the 1980s version, Tezuka used his newly created actor Rainbow Parakeet to portray Sherlock Holmspun; Rainbow Parakeet is known for his ability to shape his face to resemble anyone. Rainbow Parakeet was one of Tezuka’s newest manga series, having just begun in March of 1981.

Jetter Mars episode 12 has that little robot boy meet another British sleuth, this one is James Bond. Like Sherlock Holmspun of this present work, 007½ has lost body parts only to have them replaced by cybernetic units. He too retained only his head. Furthermore, like Holmspun, he had a dislike of robots (Jetter Mars Characters). In essence, he was a modernized version of this same character. Moreover, the controls for the sphere, which had been and would be a keyboard in the Astroboy versions of the story, were changed into a xylophone in the Jetter Mars version of the story. Likewise, the sphere was changed from a solar sphere to a freezing sphere.

 

Control device
Manga 1963 anime Jetter Mars anime 1980 anime
Manga 1963 anime 1980 anime 2003 anime

1980s, the 39th episode, entitled ``The Stolen Sun’’ retold this story to a new generation of Japanese children, while the 37th episode ``The Man-Made Solar Sphere’’ brought it before English-speaking Australian children. The way Atom loses his arms and legs in this retelling of the story, does not melt his body, but he does again resort to borrowing limbs from another unusually cooperative robot.

 

 

Previous 1963 Episode: 11 Strange Voyage (Ivan the Fool)

Next 1963 Episode: 14 Deep Freeze, The (Black Looks)

1963 Astroboy series: English sequence

Astro Boy Manga Index

 

Last updated Oct. 12 2007

Reviews, synopses, comments, and comparisons to other works are © 2005, 2007 Jeffbert Any similarities between my own work and those of Tezuka Osamu World or other sources are purely coincidental, except where sources have been cited.

Character names, short quotations of synopses, dates of publication, are the property of the respective copyright holders.

ASTRO BOY ® is a registered trademark of Tezuka Productions.

Tetsuwan Atom ® is a registered trademark of Tezuka Productions.

Tezuka, Osamu. Astro Boy Volume 8. Trans. Frederick, L. Schodt. Milwalkee, Oregon: 2003. www.darkhorse.com
--. Astro Boy Volume xx. Trans. Frederick, L. Schodt. Milwalkee, Oregon: 200N--.
Japanese Language Animated Cartoons:
Tezuka Osamu. Astro Boy (1960s). Perf. Shimizu Mari, Kachita Hisashi, Mizugaki Yoko,Muto Reiko,Yoshikawa Kazuko, Komiyama Kiyoshi, Yajima Kazuaki, Wada Fumio, Yokomori Hisashi, Sakamoto Shinpei, Kanemoto Shingo, Chiba Koichi. Tezuka Productions Co., Ltd. / Mushi Production, 1963.
--. Astro Boy (1980s). Perf. Shimizu Mari, Kachita Hisashi, Sugaya Masako, Kumakura Kazuo, Kuwahara Takeshi, Hojo Michiru, Hibino Misako, Yokozawa Keiko, Oki Tamio. Tezuka Productions Co., Ltd. / Mushi Production, 1980.
--. Jetter Mars. Perf. Shimizu Mari, Matsuo Keiko, Naya Goro.Tezuka Productions Co., Ltd. / Toei Animation Co., Ltd., 1977.

English-language Animated Cartoons:

Tezuka Osamu. Astro Boy (1960s). Perf. Billie Lou Watt, Ray Owens, Gilbert Mack. NBC, 1963.
--. Astro Boy (1980s). Perf. Richard Ganoung, Bob Gonzalez, Debby Holmes, Del Lewis, David G. Miller, Paul M. Nelson, Brian Parry, Nicholas Podbrey, Jay Rath, Kahlei A. Slick, Patricia Kugler Whitley, Becke Wilenski. Manga Entertainment, 2005. Manga Entertainment's official Astroboy pages

Acknowledgements

My personal thanks to the members of the Astroboy-Online Forum, Special thanks to Astro Forever, for her help with the 1980s series, and for creating so many animated GIFs. Thanks to DrFrag, whose extensive knowledge of all things Astroboy was very helpful. Special thanks to Mark, who owns the site; without which I would not have 'met' any other members. Special thanks to Atoman, whose friendship exposed me to the Japanese Language DVDs, not only of Astroboy, but many other animes also.

Thanks to putrocca, the founder of the Tezuka In English website; whose hosting of my pages is very important, to say the least.

And special thanks to Raymond Tucker, whose www.astroboy.tv website gave me information long before I obtained the 1963 series on DVD.