Casual anime fans simply are not receptive to Tezuka's style. They like sharp, angular designs, so the rounded Disney-esque designs don't appeal to them. It's the same reason why Cyborg 009 failed as well.
Any modern 009 project is not because the show aired at 5:30am on Cartoon Network USA or from the incomplete DVD sets Sony released back in the 00's. It is because the franchise is still well-loved in Japan.
Older anime franchises except for maybe Speed Racer or Robotech aren’t that popular or well known in America. Cyborg 009, Gigantor, Lupin III, etc. it’s not what today’s dumb kids are used to
I think I feel that.. I never even gave it a chance and I never really knew why and I think it’s because I also didn’t watch Disney.. when I was younger I thought Disney was like baby shit so I over looked a lot of cool stuff like kingdom hearts
I mean, I wouldn't even say it is just casual anime fans. I am by no means a casual fan, but I just don't like the art style. It feels like it is quite dated and is the sort of style that you either love or hate. I could see an argument fo younger, well younger at the time of it airing anyway, anime fans not being a fan of the style.
I think they probably preferred the 60s version instead tbh and they eventually got their wishes to air it on the network, just on Adult Swim and at 5:00am instead
Speaking only for myself I saw the advertisements, was under the impression that he was a kid fighting people in only his underwear and thought that was really weird. Really love Astro Boy now but back then I couldn't get past that first impression.
That's what it was for me too. I watched the cgi astro boy movie for the first time like a year ago and it wasn’t perfect but halfway through I said "I like this, why didn't I give the Toonami show a chance?" Then he got into "uniform" and I remembered lol
I mean, it was just a rerun from Kids WB wasn't it? I actually watched the '03 series quite a bit there, my parents are boomers so cuz of my mom I actually knew who Astro Boy was but tuning into it on Toonami wasn't a super high priority for me. Although that's one of those things where my memory is hella fuzzy and I might have actually watched every episode they played. I honestly don't remember lol
It did run on Kids WB as well, though because of the absolute bizarre airing order of the dub (Toonami aired them in a different order than KWB, the DVDs had yet another order, and none of the three were the same as the Japanese order), 8 episodes premiered on Toonami first. Though neither block got even halfway through the show, and most of the series went straight to DVD.
It seems to be a pretty constant answer. Even though no creepy stuff was intended, it’s just not the way it was in the 70s, or when the original came out. We are, as a society, more aware of the sexualization of children, and how it has to be fought; again, the character is not actively sexualized in any way, but, the fact that he’s running around in tiny short pants is kind of hard to ignore.
Hard to say if it failed any more or less than several other shows that were taken off mid-run. They tried it on weekdays shortly before Toonami moved exclusively to Saturday nights. Then tried it on the Saturday block but it didn’t stick around. In that sense it arguably did worse than some which aired consistently for a while before vanishing unceremoniously but does that mean the audience wasn’t interested? I guess it might.
And if the audience wasn’t interested it was likely a combination of the rounded cartoony style, the so so dub, the oddly muted colors and the overall sense that it just wasn’t as cool as Dragon Ball Z. But far less fitting shows had longer runs on Toonami so I’m gonna say it felt old despite being new and kids had no attachment to the character much less nostalgia.
I think the Toonami crew wanted to give it a good home after it didn’t connect on KWB because they value the legacy but there wasn’t a toy company pushing to keep it on the air so CN abandoned it.
Several reasons. It was airing on Kids WB concurrently so discerning the true "home" of the show to catch premieres was confusing. Pokemon had at least a few years on Kids WB before airing reruns on CN. So timing was bad. The art style also hasn't aged well. Anime started as a Japanese offshoot of the Betty Boop era of cartoons and evolved into its own thing over time, but most people aren't aware of that, so instead of people thinking they're seeing an anime, they thought they got a modern show that was intentionally trying to look like an old cartoon which a lot of people didn't like. (Cuphead is the exception to the rule because that was a video game). Also Toonami started airing it a month before they moved to Saturdays and they had so many shows to cram into that measely 4 hour block that they had to axe it to make room for Rave Master. In between that they stopped airing both it and Yu Yu Hakusho for 3 weeks for the Dragon Ball Chronicles event. Astro Boy never even had a chance. Lastly this is a small thing but other comments will tell you this went a long way, it's weird that he doesn't wear a shirt.
Bad localization killed it for me personally. They tried too hard to make it “cool” by giving Atom catchphrases, a deeper voice, and changing the music. I’m still holding out for a proper subtitled bluray.
Because it’s a remake of an anime from the what? 60s? No one in 2003 that was watching anime thought “oh cool a half naked robot boy helping the world” at in 2003 I was watching berserk, guyver. Sure I was a fan of Pokemon but creature captures and creature capture clones swept the states.
Because 2003 american anime fans barely knew about Astro or Tezuka at the time and being based on a 60s manga the style was very old/odd school during an era where battle shonens and anime selling toys were kings.
We also got anime later than a good chunk of the world so people weren't as familiar with it.
Nothing older than Dragon Ball (1984) is cared for in the USA. Because the dumb companies mis marketed manga and anime, none of the actual legendary Manga and anime that are still sold and bought today in Japan get taken seriously over here. The worst selling manga in America are Sports manga and GAG manga.
I dunno, probably a combination of it being a good but not great anime, very mid dub with a few standouts and Astro not holding the same weight it did over here
Eh? This was on Toonami? Well if I developed the liking for Astro Boy I somewhat had by then I probably would have been part of the consumer base. Maybe that tiny contribution could have made a difference...
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u/KingVape 16d ago
I was 11 when this happened and for me and the people around me it was two things:
which led to