Standing in front of previous incarnations, HRP-2 and HRP-3, the 151-centimeter, 39-kilo HRP-4 robot is part of a line of new working humanoids being developed to ease a looming labor shortage in the rapidly greying nation of Japan.
With 34 degrees of freedom in movement, including full arm articulation and simple hand moves including grasping capabilities, HRP-4 could be handy for all kinds of home jobs or factory work. He also seems light on his feet without the battery pack that Honda's Asimo needs to carry.
HRP-4 uses standard parts with a Linux core. It uses AIST's own proprietary control software on an Intel Pentium M CPU.
Check out this cool little guy. Maybe it's just me, but I think he looks a little familiar.
DARwIn-OP (Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence-Open Platform) is an open source robot, meaning that if you feel like Dr. Tenma, you can fabricate the parts using CAD files and build your own. Or, you can just cut to the chase and buy one already assembled for $12,000.
It's pretty clear from the big saucer-like eyes, the fins on the head, and the thick proportions that Astro Boy must have been an influence. However, this is actually not a Japanese-built robot at all. It was created through partnerships with a number of US universities and Korean robotics company Robotis.
Find out more information, including a video of it in action, here.
There are some really fascinating specimens in here, like this this somewhat creepy female android and the bartender robot pictured here. Really this is just a fun way of looking at how robots have advanced and become more human-like in their interactions.
Maybe some of you might think a few of them are cute, I don't know. But the article comes with the caveat that just because one could date a robot, doesn't mean it's a very good idea. But hey, maybe someday these robots will be able to date each other.
Continue reading "The Robo-Dating Scene"...
Here's an article from TechEYE.net with some interesting discussion on Japanese robots.
Scientists in Japan are at last changing focus in robotics - increasingly working on practical machines instead of creating all-singing, all-dancing, all-creepy humanoid robots. Japan has for a while now been at the forefront of releasing robots which invoke some sort of terrible uncanny valley experience.
A report in Nikkei (subscription) suggests that Japan is taking its cue from the West and now focusing on developing robotics that have direct, practical applications. Shinichiro Sanji, researcher at Mitsubishi Research Institute, told the paper: "Japanese engineers have tried to create robots like popular comic heroes Astro Boy and Gundam in a short period of time." Another expert said "A bubble in robot research has burst."
Money being spent on research at the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, or NEDO, has declined too. The biped, human lookalikes have no space in development anymore - and Japan must look to areas where there are labor shortages like fishing, farming and cleaning, suggests Sanji.
It seems companies are doing just that. Fuji Heavy Industries is still putting its yen into robot development and has recently been working on a farming robot able to inject pesticide into the ground. Automation is the way forward, says a farmer: It would "help reduce the burden on workers." Until now, says Nikkei, pumping pesticide deep into the earth is a manual task that needs a lot of careful labor - including full protection outfits from the chemicals.
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is working on a robot which will be able to comb the ocean for rare earth metals, as well as a car which may be able to drive itself. And the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization has created an automated system which can handle time intensive farm work such as planting rice seedlings. It uses GPS technology to know where it is and what it's doing.
It's good then that scientists are beginning to put away the anime. A real life Metal Gear would be a site to behold but we can't think of any applications other than World Wars 3 through 10.
Not sure how factually accurate this article is, but I think that less practical robots are still important. The advances in technology that are made during the process of creating them can potentially be used in other ways. Plus, these more whimsical robots can capture the imagination of the public, building more interest in the subject and in science and technology in general. I do feel, however, that time and effort is better spent in ways other than making robots appear and behave like humans at this time. I think that anime like Astro Boy and movies like Star Wars have made people accepting of robots that look like robots.
This tumultuous sequence of battles took place at a robotics event called Robotech (no relation to the cartoon) at the Tokyo Big Site last month. Clearly these bots have taken some major influence from the famous mecha of anime.
As cool as this is, one has to wonder, is it right to force robots to fight each other? Will they become angry and turn against humans someday? Ah, who cares? Robot wrestling rules!
Check out this article about an amazing event in Tokyo featuring all sorts of interesting robots. There are cooking robots, disaster rescue robots, even advertising robots made out of cardboard!
All of the imagination displayed by the creators of many of these new inventions would likely not be possible if not for the spark that ignited it all, Astro Boy. The little fellow on the right sure bares somewhat of a resemblance, huh?
As whimsical and frivolous as some of these robots may seem right now, with every step taken to advance and diversify these technologies, we are getting closer to the kind of world that Dr. Tezuka imagined decades ago.
TOKYO — Forget the Transformers and Astroboy: Japan's latest robots don't save the world -- they cook snacks, play with your kids, model clothes, and search for disaster victims.
In a nation that takes its humanoids seriously, the International Robot Exhibition kicked off this week, showing off the latest whirring and buzzing inventions from 192 companies and 64 organisations from at home and abroad.
Many of the cutting-edge machines on show are eye-popping, but industrial robot "Motoman" also put on a mouth-watering performance, deftly flipping a Japanese savoury pancake called okonomiyaki on a sizzling hotplate.
"It is delicious. Please enjoy," said the human-size creation of Yaskawa Electric Corp. in a robotic voice.
For pure dexterity, an artificial hand called the "H-type" was hard to beat -- a robotic hand with a sufficiently deft touch to handle a piece of pound cake without dropping a single crumb.
"This robot hand can pick up food without crushing it, which has been a hurdle for metal arms," said Jun Honda of robot developer Denso Wave.
Denso used small air pumps and a smooth silicon skin for the artificial limb, co-developed with software maker Squse, and says the device may one day be used to help the sick and elderly.
"It could be used to serve food for people who need care," Honda said.
Also aimed at helping people is the snake-shaped "Active Scope Camera", which uses robotic technology to slither serpent-style through the rubble of a disaster zone to take and transmit live video images.
Tohoku University and the International Rescue System Institute jointly developed the instrument, which propels itself forward with thousands of tiny devices called cilia that resemble the legs on a centipede.
Elsewhere, Eager Co. showed off a curvaceous female-shaped humanoid made of layers of cardboard, billed as the first eco-friendly robot.
The maker hopes the figure, with its soundless, smooth and almost seductive movements could find a job as a display window mannequin -- or even on a theatre stage.
"We want to apply this very light-weight robot as a new advertising medium," said Eager's Tsuyoshi Yamashita. "The smooth movements of the robot would help female customers feel safe and have an affinity with the machine."
A robot of the cuter variety is Ropid, 38 centimetres (15 inches) tall, with huge round eyes and boxy arms and legs -- more at home in a toy department than on a factory floor.
Unlike the super-advanced industrial robots elsewhere in the exhibition, this one keeps things simple. It can stand up, walk, run and jump -- but in a loveable way, its creator hopes.
"The challenge is to design a robot in a way to make you believe that you can communicate with it," said its creator, Tomotaka Takahashi. "With his quick actions, he looks like he's really alive."
This wind turbine, found at the Wakasu Kaihin Park in Tokyo’s Koto ward, is one the largest wind turbines in all of Japan. But what makes it even more special is that it has been decorated with artwork featuring Osamu Tezuka's characters.
More pictures and information available at Pink Tentacle!
Comparing and contrasting famous medical robots from the world of sci-fi with modern day advances and prototypes of things that were once thought only to exist in the realm of fiction, this exhibit also features the work of Osamu Tezuka, who was a licensed doctor turned Manga artist, as well as other notable related elements from pop culture. Here's an official quote:
The exhibition will also feature some famous medical robots from the world of science fiction, from the 1920s ‘Pyschophonic Nurse’, to Japanese Manga (printed cartoons) and Anime (animated films), and Britain’s own 2000AD, and ask whether science fiction reflects fact, or if scientists are inspired by the representation of medical robots in films, books and comics.
Sci-Fi Surgery: Medical Robots also marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Manga artist and animator Osamu Tezuka whose creations include ‘Astroboy’ and the maverick surgeon ‘Black Jack’. Tezuka trained as a doctor but never practiced, choosing to follow his dream of becoming a manga artist. Many of his stories feature medical themes and one of his earliest works, ‘The Monster on the 38th Parallel’, has miniaturised humans entering a body to fight disease and is thought to have been the inspiration for the 1966 Sci-Fi classic ‘Fantastic Voyage’.
A programme of themed Sci-Fi Surgery: Medical Robots events including anime and film screenings, discussions and robot family workshops has been created to support the exhibition.
It runs until December 23. Admission is free, so do check it out if you're in or around the London area. Thanks to Helen McCarthy's Blog for the info.
Last month, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation did this fascinating report on Japan's attempts to replace it aging workforce with robots. "Mighty Atom" Astro Boy is specifically mentioned as a reason why Japan loves robots so much. It's a unique problem that Japan faces, and one has to wonder just what the future of this particular solution holds.
Thanks to Andrew for bringing this interesting video to my attention. You can watch it uncut and in high quality for yourself on the CBC website, but I have also uploaded it onto YouTube in two parts for archival purposes.
Part 1
Part 2
There are also some field notes about the piece which you can read on the CBC website or by clicking the link below for an archived version.
Field Notes by Saša Petricic
"Send in the Robots" by videojournalist Saša Petricic January 30, 2009 HELP WANTED
Slowly, deliberately, Japan plans to replace its people with robots.
It populated its factories with long-armed machines long ago to perform menial, repetitive tasks... to build TVs or microwaves or cars. That was in the name of efficiency.
Now, though, the country is facing an actual shortage of people. Since 2006, Japan's population has been dropping, its workforce dangerously hollowed out by old age. As nursing homes replace factories for more and more Japanese, their country has two choices: to rely on immigrants for temporary labour the way many industrial countries do, including the US and Canada. Or, to find a technological solution.
This being Japan, with a strong aversion to foreign influences and evils, and an equally powerful love of gadgets, it has chosen the latter. So today, from Kyoto to Kobe, Osaka to Tokyo, engineers are scrambling to build the perfect android. To make robots that do household chores, keep the young and the elderly company, welcome guests, even sing and dance. Government subsidies push the effort along.
The technical challenges are huge. Gears and cogs are too bulky, batteries don't last long enough, the perfect fit, feel and attitude for lifelike and effective robot workers remain elusive.
And time is quickly running out for this technological answer to succeed. Japan needs new workers now - hundreds of thousands of them. The most optimistic robot-makers don't see their creations being ready to help the economy for at least three to five years. It seems to be a plan that's failed even before it gets off the ground.
Of course, the irony is that the workers Japanese scientists are struggling to create already exist... they're available today in exactly the right shapes and sizes, with a familiar interface: human workers, ready and able - in surplus even - around the globe.
Posted by The National on February 2, 2009 10:17 AM |
Here's an interesting article from the E-Commerce Times about real-life robotics and how they compare to their science fiction counterparts. As with most articles on this topic, Astro Boy is mentioned as being a key influence behind Japan's more human-esque contributions to the field of robotics. Just goes to show how far-reaching the work of Tezuka has become!
Ready for the Robot Revolution By Pam Baker TechNewsWorld Part of the ECT News Network 05/03/08 4:00 AM PT
Compared with the agile, intelligent robots envisioned in science fiction, today's real-life robots may seem relatively unimpressive. But advances in robotics are indeed being made, and the results don't necessarily manifest themselves in humanoid automatons that can dance and shake hands. Often, the technology finds other practical applications.
Despite some impressive showings in robotics lately, the accolades are slow to come from industry outsiders. We, the general public, watch Honda's Asimo slowly make its way down a few steps, for example, and unfairly compare it to the glib and golden C-3PO of science fiction, and thus blind ourselves to the miracle before us.
But it's not just Asimo that suffers from this prejudice; it's all of them walking, scrambling or rolling on the planet today.
In that misguided and erroneous judgment of all real robots Latest News about robots, there is "Danger, Will Robinson," as the Model B-9 Environmental Control Robot in "Lost in Space" would say. For ignorance and diminished enthusiasm leads to lack of funding, derailed projects, slowed progress, and fewer minds focused on bringing sci-fi technology to life.
Fortunately, the industry has not been deterred. Once the blinders come off, you see robotics at work everywhere.
Don't Miss the Revolution
"If you are looking for robots, you might miss the robotic revolution," Matt Mason, director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, told TechNewsWorld.
He says a robot is a bunch of technologies all packed together in one human- or animal-sized bundle. But in most cases there is no reason to cram the technologies into such a tight bundle. So even though you don't see it, robotics technologies are having a significant impact already, and that impact is growing.
For example, computer vision technology is being deployed in cameras for improved auto-focus and red eye correction. It's also deployed on the Web to assist in image database searches. Robotics technologies are used in computer games Latest News about computer games, to produce computer generated animation for movies, and even to provide real-time enhancement of televised sporting events.
Serendipitous Design
Where did these robotic enhancements come from? "These are useful by-products we discover along the way," Oussama Khatib, professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, told TechNewsWorld. Khatib heads a research group at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and is part of Honda's Humanoid Robot Project. He is also the father of the famous earlier robots: Romeo and Juliet.
"We are making progress on building a humanoid robot, but we don't need to completely build one before we can apply what we have learned to other disciplines," explained Khatib.
From enhanced medical tools and procedures to energy-saving appliances and smart security Free Trial. Security Software As A Service From Webroot. systems, robotics is pushing advancements overall at a speedier pace.
"There is still a long way to go before we see robots that can perform at a level that Hollywood presents, but things are moving ahead enough that there is value emerging," Tandy Trower, general manager of Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft Robotics Group, told TechNewsWorld.
"Techniques like vision recognition that 10 years ago were black arts are popping up all over the place. What would likely cost you thousands of dollars in the past might even be free today," he added.
Better Living Through Robots
Beyond the invisible but useful robotics that power much of our mundane world, the quest for a perfect robot to aid in an uncertain future is under way in earnest.
In Japan, for example, a think tank is predicting that robots will start to fill the jobs of humans as the population there ages and shrinks. The U.S. is facing a similar population problem, as are a number of other well-developed countries.
"In the U.S. alone, 40 million people are over the age of 65, and over 90 percent of them wish to remain living independently. However, we all know that as we age, our physical and cognitive capabilities tend to decline. Robots could be important way to deal with this by acting as active agents that help make up for any diminished abilities we have," said Trower.
When industry insiders speak of robots filling jobs, they are not referring to the industrial robots we have now that deliver repetitive and automated services. They are referring to robots that can replace humans in far more complex tasks.
"Robots can remind us to take our medication. Robots can carry things for us. Robots can keep us better connected with our families and caregivers. Robots can even entertain us," said Trower. "And the cost of the robots to do this will be far cheaper than human assisted care."
The Robots of Japan
Japan in particular has a reason to rush robot development, which is why we see so many efforts coming from there. "With declines in birth rates, overall the average age is increasing at an unprecedented rate, and it is proceeding most rapidly in Japan," said Trower.
"There is great concern about how to deal with the loss out of the workforce as well as how to care for an ever increasing population of senior citizens. Robots are seen as way to bridge the gap," he explained.
The elderly stand to gain a great deal in quality of life issues. "Intelligent homes can provide support to the elderly, allowing us to lead independent lives much longer than we do now," explained Mason.
That support can range from carrying the groceries and putting them away to cleaning the house, aiding in dressing, providing immediate CPR and summoning medical assistance if needed. The possibilities are endless, making the robotic creations in the movie "I, Robot" a lot less far-fetched.
Humanoid, Insectoid, Robotoid
However, the ultimate design of these synthetic helpers is still a bit up for grabs.
Many have noted that the Japanese tend to design robots that look human while Westerners tend to build robots that look more like insects or animals. What's up with that?
"This may be partly cultural. The Japanese have always considered robots as positive human assistants. Astro Boy has been one of the earliest, most popular characterizations," explained Trower. "Perhaps it also has something to do with Asian culture being more attuned with nature, whereas in Western cultures we have been dominated by the scientific method, which tends to separate the rational from the emotional or social aspects of perception."
Others in the industry think the East vs. West perception of robots is totally off the mark from the start.
"Most of our robots are neither humanoid nor insectoid," laughed Mason. "In fact, they don't look like robots at all. Perhaps we should say they are not even robotoid."
He cites, for example, Boss, the Carnegie Mellon robot that recently won the Urban Challenge that looks like a car. "Probably when we have developed homes with embedded robotic technology, they will still look like homes," he said.
Challenges Ahead
The challenges ahead are difficult, but multi-disciplined teams are chiseling away at them every day.
"The current robots are platforms to study, but they are not yet safe for human interaction," explained Khatib. "We are also making progress in sensing and perceiving the environment, but it is difficult. The environment in industry is structured, but the environment around humans is messy. There is still a ways to go."
Khatib said the major challenges are in integration, decreasing the robot's weight, making a more sensitive skin for better environment perception, and in solving the human safety issue.
"A major stumbling block is to build systems that are safe and soft enough to interact with people, and also cheap enough for people to afford," agreed Mason.
In the end, the perfect robot will become commonplace and as unappreciated as the desktop PC.
"Robots are a natural evolution of PC technology, just enabled to interact and support us in a greater diversity of ways," said Trower. "They will help us live safer and more comfortable lives and will come in many forms, from smarter cars to smarter appliances.
"We may not even think of all of them as robots at all," he said. At least that much will stay the same.
i09's Mangobot column has a great article about Frederik L. Schodt, Astro Boy manga translator, interpretor for Osamu Tezuka, and renowned author of several books about anime, manga, and Japanese culture. This article looks at how some books writen by Schodt, one about robotics in Japan and another about manga, were ahead of their time. Many of Schodt's books are available for sale at the AstroBoy World Store and I can definitely recommend them having read a few myself. You can expect more about Mr. Schodt and his writings here on AstroBoy World in the future.
You can read the article on the i09 website or click the link below to read it here.
Welcome back to MangoBot, a biweekly column about Asian futurism by TokyoMango blogger Lisa Katayama.
In the spring of 1988, Japanese publisher Kodansha released a revealing English-language book titled Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics, and the Coming Robotopia. The book predicted a new era when humanoid robots would dominate Japanese society in the same way that industrial robots were then dominating behind-the-scenes manufacturing in the country. It was a topic that nobody in the Western world knew much about at all. The author, Frederik L. Schodt, was a freelance interpreter from Washington, DC who lived in Japan as a kid and traveled extensively between the Japan and the US—often as a private interpreter for Tezuka Osamu, the God of manga (Japanese comic books). And he predicted a social trend that was nearly beyond comprehension in the 1980s.
Robot Kingdom has been out of print since 1992. Although it got great reviews and the publishers had high hopes for it, sales figures were small. That was probably because the stuff Schodt was writing about was so alien to a U.S. audience. Schodt remembers seeing the book on the $1 rack at a bookstore in downtown San Francisco. Not long after that, Kodansha gave him back all rights to the book, as well as the original plates that were used to print it.
"The only problem with the book is that it was released ten years ahead of its time," says Chris Baker, a senior editor at Wired magazine. "If it had appeared in the era of ASIMO and AIBO, it would have found the audience it deserved." (Author Tim Hornyak published a follow-up to Robot Kingdom, called Loving the Machine, in 2006. It's a more pop-y, updated look at the robot industry, which, according to Hornyak, "has been very well received.")
In the 1980s, Americans seriously believed that the Japanese were going to take over the world. While technology manufacturing stateside was still subpar, it was equivalent to religious ritual in Japan—organized, routine, and very, very precise. Schodt, who had been hired to interpret during factory visits by major Japanese telecom companies visiting the U.S., was taken aback by the vast chasm between the two countries' processes. "The US didn't understand Japan's obsession with quality control and manufacturing technology," Schodt says. "They thought, we have the space shuttle, and we have the bomb. What else could we possibly need? Their factories were a mess."
When he returned to Japan, Schodt signed up for factory tours at JVC, Toshiba, Hitachi, and Fanuc. He found that each company had intense pride in their manufacturing processes and culture. The best of them had entire assembly lines formed by robots in virtually unmanned factories.
For the Japanese, robotics was not just a natural step in the evolution of the world; it was an enormous financial and emotional investment into a glorified future in which humanoid robots would eventually help humans in daily life. People were excitedly tossing around words like "robot kingdom" (ロボット王国) and watching anime like Gundam and Astro Boy with starry-eyed hope for a happy sci-tech future. "Robots are a metaphor for the relationship between technology and culture," Schodt says.
The book itself is a classic—it talks about the first Japanese robot ever (a tea-serving mechanical bot from the 17th century), scifi robots, anime robots, religion's influence on robotics, the difficulties of defining the word "robot", and the promising future of the humanoid. Schodt took most of the photographs in the books on his own, and collected the rest via all-day train rides across Japan to meet his sources. He even drew all the graphs and diagrams in the book by hand.
In addition to predicting the rise of robots in Japan, Schodt also foresaw the manga craze that would hit the U.S. in the 1990s. In 1983, when he published the iconic Manga! Manga!, most Americans had never even heard of Japanese comics; today they take up entire sections of bookstores like Borders and Barnes & Noble.
We've come a long way since Robot Kingdom. Stories about new Japanese bots show up in the blogosphere every day, and we all know that Japan's headed into the next phase of full humanoid bot integration (because I told you so). But in 1988, Schodt's book was the only resource on Japanese robots that existed in the US.
If you ask the man himself, though, he'll tell you that he was just in the right place at the right time. "I haven't actually predicted anything very accurately in life," Schodt says. "All I've done is identify a couple of trends that were staring me in the face."
One of the biggest events of the 2003 Mighty Atom Birthday celebration was Robodex, an exhibition of robots held in Yokohama on April 6 of that year. The event focused on sharing the future of robotics in Japan with emphasis on showcasing more human-like robots, such as the Honda Asimo, instead of the boring industrial kind.
The event included an Astro Boy display by way of the "Atom Dream Factory", where a life-size motorized Astro was lying on an operating table, being attended by robotic appendages. Every 30 minutes, Astro would sit up and raise an arm.
More pictures from Robodex 2003 can be found here. It really looks like something straight out of an episode of Astro Boy.
Although Robodex 2003 was a grand, exciting display of the incredible advances that Japanese developers have accomplished, this particular Astro Boy robot was strictly ornamental and incredibly basic by comparison to the other robots at the event. It was mostly there as a tribute to what the character has done to inspire robotics in Japan and as symbol for the hopes and dreams of what is yet to come. No doubt caught up in the hype surrounding the Mighty Atom's birthday, crowds ate it up.
Here is Osamu Tezuka's son, Macoto, posing for a photo op with his father's famous creation.
The article that this picture was attached to has some great info on the history of Astro, Osamu Tezuka, the 2003 anime, and the movie that Columbia pictures had planned which has since been scrapped. You can read it on Web Japan or by clicking the link below to continue reading here.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASTRO BOY! Celebrating the Birth of the "Robot with a Heart" (April 21, 2003)
Many Japanese adults grew up with the cartoon character Astro Boy (known in Japanese as Tetsuwan Atomu, meaning Mighty Atom). Astro Boy first appeared in Shonen magazine in 1952. Later, starting in 1963, he starred in an animated TV series, of which 193 episodes were made. This cartoon was extremely popular, maintaining an average viewership rating of 30%. In the fall of 1963, the Tetsuwan Atomu series crossed the Pacific to the United States, where 104 episodes were aired on NBC under the name Astro Boy. Like their Japanese counterparts, many American adults no doubt feel nostalgic for their childhoods when they see the Astro Boy character.
Real Time Catches Up with Astro Boy's Birthdate Astro Boy's creator, the late manga (cartoon) artist Osamu Tezuka (1928-1989), set the Tetsuwan Atomu series in Japan 50 years in the future. On April 7, 2003, real time caught up with the fictional birthdate Tezuka chose for his character. When Astro Boy first appeared, Japan was just beginning to pick itself up from the rubble of World War II. Tezuka gave his creativity free rein, and his futuristic portrayal of the transportation networks and cityscapes of twenty-first century society anticipated today's computerized world with what was, in some respects, a startling degree of accuracy.
So has the modern age caught up with Astro Boy's world? Certainly, the high-rise buildings that dominate the Tokyo skyline and the superhighways that crisscross the country could have been lifted straight from the near-future world depicted by Tezuka. But what about the main character Atomu himself? Does he have an equivalent in today's real world?
A Robot with a Heart With the aid of jet-propelled footwear, Astro Boy flew through the skies at supersonic speed. He had strength equivalent to 100,000 horsepower and could speak 60 languages. But his most important feature was that he had a heart and experienced emotions.
For better or worse, modern civilization has yet to create a robot with a heart. Though research into artificial intelligence is moving forward, nothing has yet been created that comes close to replicating human emotions. On this point, Tezuka's vision was too far ahead of its time.
In commemoration of Astro Boy's birthday, the character is returning to TV screens in his first new series for 22 years, Astro Boy Tetsuwan Atomu - to be aired by the stations of the Fuji Television Network. This comeback series, produced by artists who were heavily influenced by Tezuka, consists of 50 episodes that will air over the coming 12 months. The theme of this series is "the robot with a heart," and the focus is on Astro Boy's preoccupation with his own consciousness. According to the director of the series, Kazuya Konaka of Tezuka Productions, "The theme is the relationship between humans and robots. As Atomu wrestles with his status as a robot, humans have trouble deciding how to treat a robot with a heart."
Astro Boy on the Silver Screen? The new Astro Boy series will be broadcast in the United States, too. And word has it that in 2004 a major Hollywood studio, Columbia Pictures Industries Inc., will invest $100 million in making a film based on the series. Meanwhile, Astro Boy's Birthday Party, a festival of animated-film screenings and exhibitions, began on April 6 in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles and will run for two months.
Naturally, a variety of birthday events are scheduled in Japan. Robodex 2003, one of the world's largest robot shows, took place in Yokohama from April 4 to 6. Robodex 2002 made headlines for the Asimo, an upright-walking robot created by Honda that can walk up and down stairs, and the SDR-4X, a Sony robot that can dance and sing. This year's event witnessed the introduction of a silver-colored Asimo that can walk twice as fast as the previous model and many other robots designed to do real work in human society, such as nursing care and security. At the center of the venue there was a display called Atom Dream Factory, which featured real industrial robots gathered around Astro Boy acting out the moment of his birth.
For anyone visiting Japan during this time, one spot that is well worth a visit is the Tezuka Osamu Memorial Hall in the city of Takarazuka, Hyogo Prefecture, where Tezuka spent his youth. Visitors to the country are also likely to encounter whimsical tributes to Astro Boy's birthday in some unexpected places. For example, in Tezuka's original manga, Atomu was born in the Tokyo district of Takadanobaba. Now, each time a train leaves JR Takadanobaba station, its departure is announced by the playing of a few bars from the Tetsuwan Atomu theme song over the station's public address system. So anyone standing on the platform is able to hear the famous melody that once captured children's hearts.
The number and variety of tributes to Astro Boy reflect the great affection felt by so many people in Japan and elsewhere toward this lovable robot.
This site is dedicated to everything Astro Boy, the works of Osamu Tezuka, and other related anime & manga. Whether you're an old-school fan, a newcomer, or anything in between, AstroBoy World is bound to offer something interesting for you.
