The Final Episode #62: Astroboy (1980 - 1981)

 

You know if taking something from a different country and dubbing it somehow makes it Canadian content then Canada should have taken shows from all over the world, because I'm sure they would have been better than most of our actual home grown content. I need to start reviewing more of it but I really don't want to go look for it or even re-watch most of it. I just know when it was a live action Canadian show that's when the Super Nintendo got turned on and I played Donkey Kong Country 2 for a few hours. What I'm saying is that in our weird world Astro Boy counted as Canadian content because Canada did the dub and it showed on TV over here for like ever. It's probably the first thing I'd have ever seen that came from the Land of the Rising Sun. Except maybe Godzilla. It was probably one or the other.

Before I go any farther I must say that this show is one of the top 10 theme songs for cartoons ever. this is not a thing that can be argued, if you disagree with that fact you are a big four eyed lame-o who smells like fish and I do not respect or like you. Sorry. You can listen to it here. Now we can get into the history of this show. It was based off a manga which is pretty much a Japanese comic book. I'm surprised I haven't reviewed more of them because some of them are incredibly fun and should be discussed. I'm too busy talking about obscure Marvel and DC characters that only I care about. Astro Boy is definitely one of the oldest things I've talked about as it dates all the way back to 1953. Astro Boy is older than most of my family members. I think that's pretty wild. It had an anime series in the 1960s and I don't believe I ever saw a single episode of that series. I'm sure it was awesome because Astro Boy was an incredibly fun tv series and manga-comic. I shall have to discuss the best Astro Boy manga story soon enough because it's great.

I enjoyed the hell out of this show when I was a kid. I don't know what channel it came on but whenever I would come across it I would watch it. Honestly all that sticks in my mind is the theme song which is still kicking rad and if you disagree you can eat something gross. Astro Boy is the story of uh Astro Boy a robot who fights evil. He was created by Dr. Tenma who made him look like his deceased son. He ends up in the hands of Dr. Elefun. I know that's not his Japanese name but I love that name. It's a lot of fun to say. This Final Episode involves a lot of stuff so let's get into it. 

It turns out that Dr. Tenma had a prototype design of a robot that would be created before Astro Boy. These designs get stolen and Astro Boy has to sneak into the country of Grotta to get them back. He's given a disguise and everything. It doesn't last long because he has to jump out of a train because people are being searched at the stop he has to make. So he finds the robot he was there to look for already in  a little girl robot named Nuka. I think you already get what's already gonna happen with that name. Anyway Astro Boy ruins his disguise by trying to break through the fence and gets lasered to fuck. 

Nuka has Astro Boy pretend to be deactivated and just brings him into the fortress. Fortress is a cool word and should be used more. Astro Boy and Nuka talk about how Nuka wants a robot friend and the other robots in this fortress are heartless. We see some weird lizard looking robots and I gotta say I love how they get like 1 minute of screen time and they still get a great look. They didn't mess around in this series. Every character gets a great look. They get around and get stuck in a trap. Dr. Rindolf comes on the screen and  Astro Boy finds out that Nuka is the robot he's there to find! We also find out that this trap room is a fucking rocket, just like that Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends series finale. Astro Boy can't get out because this trap room is magnetized and the rocket is being sent into the sun. Dr. Rindolf does not fuck around.

Nuka however did not go back is out side on the rocket letting Astro know about that thanks to Morse code. I wonder if I learned about things like that from cartoons instead of school. Nuka and Astro end up having to fight a praying mantis robot. As I said I love how every thing gets its own fantastic look and this scene is great. Astro gets the praying mantis robot to beat his own ass which is great. They meet up with Dr. Rindolf who has so many robots with NEUTRON BOMBS in them ready to be finished and created. So in his hubris Dr. Rindolf just destroys the damn design for the robots which does not make Astro happy so he breaks the FUCK out of his robot creating machine which comes crashing down on Dr. Rindolf.

Nuka lets Astro know that the bomb inside her has been started and Astro doesn't want to leave her. He gets Dr. Rindolf back up on his feet to disassemble the bomb which means the end of Nuka because he cannot bring her back due to setting the designs on fire. They finally dissemble the bomb with one second on the ticker left. We then go back to Dr. Elefun and Astro talking about what happened. Astro says that her legs were all that were left and wants his legs replaced with hers so that they can be together forever. Now that's a fucking bittersweet way to end this episode. Damn Japan I didn't want to be depressed today!

FINAL VERDICT: This is one of the best Final Episodes. Action packed, bitter sweet, wild designs. I had a great time to watching this even if it made be a bit sad at the end. This one comes Highly Recommended. I'm really gonna have to talk about some Astro Boy comics soon enough.