Autotelik

AstroBoy was one of my favorite cartoons. Apparently, Kids WB is showing the new series (which started last year in Japan). Their website says it's on Saturday mornings at 8:30/7:30 ET/PT, but I've been checking my cable channel, as well as other carriers in San Francisco, but none of them carry it.

Anyone seen the new AstroBoy on WB???

fujishig

They aired around three or four episodes already. It didn't really pull in great reatings (though it was on pretty early). It's either canned for good (like Escaflowne was back in the day) or it'll return later.

It's pretty good, and the animation is very recent (dubbed from Japan, of course). I hope it comes back.

barbybrant

They aired 4 eps, January 17, 24, 31, and Feb. 7. On the East Coast it was on at 8:30 a.m., which was probably the reason for the notsogreat ratings. It was really stunning visually so far. I noticed that in the last episode they showed they were already messing with the dub----they'd used the term "kokoro" consistently throughout the first three episodes and in the fourth they changed it to "free will" (altho the closed captioning still said "kokoro"). I guess their test audiences were getting lost on certain concepts, although from other stuff I've read I'm not sure "free will" is the best translation. So, they probably removed the show to tinker with it some more.

Apparently Sony had a huge budget for making this new series of Astro, and I'm sure it didn't come cheap to the WB either. But, you know, so far the subject matter has been for an older audience (not the tots that are up at 8:30 am)-----the WB would be wise to reposition it, say, between Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh, or send it to their sister net Cartoon Network for a Saturday night primetime slot.

bub2000

I saw the first four episodes... It was an ok dub, but I saw another dub of episode 1 (in 16x9 no less!) that was a bit better.
The new theme song is almost non-existant, and the background music doesn't always match the action.
(The Japanese Theme that starts, in English: "What is the reason of my birth, Reason of my life, Question of man? What he is, what he wants?" is better than what the pseudo-electronic theme they tried).

I really hope it isn't cancelled as the people that were doing the fan-sub have also cancelled it.

Chew

I didn't even know this was on until they did a review in "Entertainment Weekly". It's not playing on my WB.

bub2000

YTV says they'll continue airing new episodes in March:

http://www.ytv.com/programming/shows...asp?showID=241

Autotelik

cool. thanks. i hope to catch it when it returns, or better yet, hope for a R1 DVD release. (fingers crossed).

barbybrant

Just a reminder:

Astro Boy starts airing Monday 3/8 at 5 pm ET on the Cartoon Network. It'll be a Monday through Thursday deal.