Astro Boy 2003 Dub Changes
Differences between the English Dub and Japanese Original:
Name Changes
There are, and ever shall be, name changes. Astro is called by his traditional American name 'Astro,' rather than, 'Atom,' and in this case the Japanese creators of the show made it easy for the US by putting both words, Astro and Atom, on the panel that Dr. Ochanomizu glances at when choosing the name in episode 1. Ochanomizu is in this dub called 'Dr. Oshay,' a reasonable choice for US kids who would have trouble with too many syllables, and certainly an improvement over, 'Dr. Elephant,' as he was in the 1980 series. Dr. Tenma remains Dr. Tenma, and Wato, a character inserted from the Three-Eyed-One, is still Wato. Astro's classmate 'Kenichi,' familiar to American audiences from his key role in Metropolis, has had his name changed to 'Kennedy,' while Astro's sister 'Uran,' is 'Zoran,' an alternate name she has had for many years.
Different Music
The true loss noticed at once by anyone familiar with the Japanese version is the removal of the original opening and ending theme songs. Earlier US versions of Astro Boy have usually dubbed the opening, but in this case the originals have been removed entirely, and a rather monotonous instrumental hard-rock guitar piece has been substituted for what were very beautiful and appropriate pieces. The opening sequence retains its original visuals, while the ending sequence has been cut entirely, including Astro's inspirational final message, 'Kimi no kokoro de catch the future!' (Catch the future with your heart!). This is likely not simply the choice of the US distributors, but probably stems from licensing problems with the original songs, which were both by high-profile artists, and so difficult to license that neither appears on the Japanese Astro Boy 2003 CD soundtrack. The Japanese and English lyrics to both songs are linked below, but I urge you to seek out some way to hear the originals, since the music as well as the lyrics are simply beautiful.
Opening Theme: True Blue. Japanese lyrics only, full version.
Opening Theme: True Blue. TV-length version, Japanese and English.
Ending Theme: Boy's Heart.
'Kokoro'
One interesting non-change in the US dub iis their use of the untranslated Japanese term 'kokoro,' to refer to what it is that Astro and other new AI robots have which older ones didn't, and which makes them more like real living things. Any student of the Japanese language will sympathise with the difficulties in translating the concept of 'kokoro,' into English, since neither heart, spirit, soul or emotions really works for it. By leaving it in the Japanese, the dub makes it feel almost as if 'kokoro' were some sort of technical robotics term, which is what I suspect most children who see the show will assume, but it is nevertheless an interesting writing choice in a dub which has expunged all other traces of Japanese, including the names and theme song.
An Older, Tougher Astro
The dub, probably in an effort to appeal to the young-teen audience who have come to expect anime to mean teen heroes like Fullmetal Alchemist’s Edward Elric, has chosen to make Astro sound much older than he does in the Japanese version. He has a much deeper voice, more like a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old than the high-pitched eight-year-old Japanese voice, though this is in part due to the general preference for higher-pitched voices in Japan. In addition to an older voice, Astro’s dialogue is a lot rougher, with less childish innocence and more slang. While frequently results in truly delightful puns, like, 'Cool your jets, Atlas!' or Astro’s new catch-phrase, 'Let's Rocket!' which he shouts whenever taking off, substitutions like, 'What’s all this rules stuff?' for the simple, 'Rulu-wa nani?' (what are rules) make Astro a less ideal hero. Indeed, Astro's US demeanor is now somewhat inconsistent with his noble and innocent behavior, since the original, 'Friend to all humans,' would never have responded to a bunch of jeering humans with, 'Knock it off!' nor replied to the taunt, 'Come on, robot, let’s see you try attacking us!' with the aggressive, 'Yeah, it’d be an unfair fight, for you!' As Tezuka himself explains in one of the introductions, the original manga of Astro Boy suffered criticism while he was writing it because people said Astro was unrealistically perfect and heroic, and pressured him to make him tougher and darker, and tastes have, if anything, darkened in the last sixty years. Still, much of Astro’s draw is his ability to make us love and believe in a true hero again, since we are used sympathizing with so many anti-heroes and charismatic villains. Indeed, the original manga’s ratings dropped whenever Tezuka made him seem older or darker. Thus I personally think that this change damages the series, and that the new generation of American children who grow up with a rougher, more ordinary Astro Boy will be diminished by the loss of a true hero.
'My Creator'
The authors of the English dub have, for reasons of their own, made the active decision to downplay the father-son relationship between Astro and Dr. Tenma. For example, at the decisive moment when Astro recognizes Dr. Tenma, and you can see his lips say, 'O-to-san' (Father) the dub supplies, 'My creator.' Elsewhere, when Tenma describes the creation of Astro, he claims to have based him on, 'a boy I once knew named Tobio,' rather than, 'my son Tobio.' While Tenma’s obsession with and long-term manipulation of Astro are unchanged, the US editors seem simply to have been uncomfortable with presenting such an evil father. In the final episodes, when the plot centers on Tenma and Astro, the dub does come through and use the word 'Father,' but they seem to try to save it as much as possible for the very end - perhaps in order to give it greater impact. All in all, the change has little impact on the show, since Tenma's activities are the same, his paternal creator-creation relationship with Astro is still clear, and if anything the tone is more similar to the original manga, where Astro's creation from the real boy Tobio was rarely mentioned after the origin story, and not nearly such a key plot point as it is in the Japanese version of the 2003 TV series.