Legends of the Future: Astro Boy and The Secret History of the Japanese
Comic Strip and Animation Industries.


There have been many tales of the future, of course, by authors from all
cultures. Generally, those who read them do so for the purposes of
entertainment, and/or to enter into philosophical debate of the ideas
presented by the tales. The practice of beginning a story by alleging it
to be a true one, and relating how the author came to know of it (often
through an account of the discovery of a manuscript, or a meeting with the
tale's protagonist) ceased to be fashionable in the previous century. But
a certain sort of mind is often compelled to wonder whether such a change
in taste might have been deliberately introduced so as to allow authors to
present their tales in the form of fiction, allowing them to be widely
recieved, whereas their appearance as alleged fact would be dismissed.

Schroeder, in a sequence of articles, has done much to suggest ways and
means by which knowledge of future events has come to authors of science
fiction, from Isaac Asimov to the producers of _Star Trek_. For my own
part, I have avoided such speculation concerning how the creators of
certain Japanese animations and comic strips (hereafter, anime and manga)
preferring to suggest that they were simply precognitive. Recently,
however, I realized that such a widespread paranormal phenomenon was not
merely unlikely, but also unnecessary. It is my belief that the roots of
such foreknowledge can be found at the very origin of these modes of
entertainment, in one man, rightly called the God of Japanese Comics.

In the late summer of 1946, Tezuka Osamu (1928-1989) was intending to
begin his university studies. It seems likely that he was also
experimenting with the drawings that would, later that year, become his
first published work, "Ma-chan no nikkicho" ("Ma-chan's Diary"). What is
not generally recorded in his official biography was the trip he took to
Tokyo in that summer following the end of the Pacific War -- which is
perhaps not surprising, given that the American authorities were very
quick to cover those events up.

It was Tezuka's fate to be in Tokyo when the creature initially termed "G"
(for giant) and later named "Gojira", after the films it inspired, made
its  presence known. He avoided serious injury, and it can be said with
some honesty that the events were ultimately to his benefit, for he there
met the man who would become the inspiration for his classic character
"Blackjack"[1] and watched him perform medical miracles. But on the whole,
it must have left him extremely uneasy concerning the future of the world,
if atomic power might produce more such horrors. Yet he went on to write
highly optimistic stories about the future.

In one of the more famous sequences of his most famous series, "Tetsuwan
Atom" ("Mighty Atom", better known to American audiences as "Astro Boy")
the robotic hero is accidentally thrown backwards in time to the 1960s,
while trying to help Earth-stranded aliens. There, he meets the man who
will become his mentor, Dr. Ochanomizu (Dr. Pachydermus in the American
adaptation) as a young man, and has several adventures before his
batteries begin to wear out. Without access to replacements, Astro Boy
climbs the side of Mount Fuji to an isolated area, lies down, and "dies".
However, he has also met the aliens whom he attempted to help, and because
of this change in history, his future self will not be thrown backwards in
time.

It is my belief that there is a secret behind this tale. The first hint to
that secret can be found in the character's first appearance, in which he
was called "Atom Taishi" -- sometimes translated as "Captain Atom", but
usually presented as "Ambassador Atom". An Ambassador, of course, is a
*visitor* to a place. Tezuka-sensei hinted at it again when the classic
tales were reprinted in the 1970s with new "bridging" material featuring
the artist interacting with his characters and explaining the stories to
the audience. He was implying that he had, in fact met his "creation" --
not merely in imagination, but in reality.

Essentially, the tale of the robot hero's adventures in the 1960s actually
occurred in the late 1940s. The episode depicting his involuntary
involvement in the American war in Vietnam actually referred to the French
war in Indochina, then in its infancy. And sometime in this period, Mighty
Atom/Astro Boy met Tezuka Osamu. Perhaps they met by chance, with Astro
saving the young artist's life. Or perhaps the robot sought out the man
who had, in his future but Astro's past, told stories about a robot who
seemed eerily familiar. Not for nothing is the river of time often
compared to the Circle of Ourouboros.

So Astro told his chronicler-to-be about the future that was to come, and
Tezuka fascinatedly took notes. The future he related was one where there
was difficulties, but also hope. Bad things were going to happen, as with
Tezuka's story of the first robot to attempt to claim citizenship, but
good ones would as well. It was a story that captured his own imagination
just as his own stories would come to capture that of generations of
children, on every continent, for decades to come.

But there was more. One other element of the truth was not revealed in the
published version of these events. Tezuka's tales were not strong in the
area that American graphic artists later termed "continuity". They were
largely episodes, rather than chapters in a saga. The characters did not
change a great deal over the years, and I believe that this is further
evidence of their origin in fact, for Astro couldn't have told Tezuka
*everything*.[2] And so I believe that when Astro told the story of how he
had found himself in the past, he neglected to reveal from how far in the
future he had travelled -- and that he had come from a point in his own
timeline much further from his origins than the tales revealed.

Consider that Astro, while more deserving of the title human than many
born to it, is/was/will be also a machine. With regular maintenance, he
could exist for centuries. And so he had, when he came to be tossed back
in time, which meant that it was not only his own history that he related
to Tezuka Osamu, but an entire history of the future.

Nor was Tezuka the only one to benefit from that account. In the early
1960s, he helped to create the Japanese "school" of animation. It is
possible that certain animators who worked for his production house were
eventually allowed to see the notes. Rumours about them and their contents
might have spread to their colleauges, until it was an open secret that an
account of the future existed. As a result, many of the tales of the
future portrayed in Japanese animation or comics were inspired by the
notes' contents.

Of course, even those who had actually seen the notes would not
necessarily have gotten all of the details correct. It might be that a
passage from the notes about an attack on the planet Earth in the
twenty-second century, and the desperate attempt to prevent another such,
resulting in the longest journey ever undertaken by humans to that point,
inspired the events chronicled by the creators of "Uchuu Senkan Yamato"
("Space Battleship Yamato", adapted as "Star Blazers"), when they actually
referred to the Xindi attack on Earth and the voyage of the
_Enterprise_.[3] Or an account of a war between Earth and Jupiter inspired
the series "Martian Sucessor Nadesico" when the notes actually detailed
events already described in the novel _Triplanetary_. But sometimes, these
creators were absolutely correct in what they created. Who can say what
Astro revealed?

Those who object that revealing the truth in fictionalized form would make
it less likely to happen are ignoring their own history. After all, _Star
Trek_ predicted, in the early 1960s, that a war would be fought by
genetically engineered supermen in the early 1990s. And this happened,
after all, though the fact that the Tyrant of Asia (who *did* apparently
use the alias Khan Noonian Singh at one point) claimed to be a genetically
enhanced human was not revealed until well after the war was over.
Likewise, the commanders of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police's Special
Vehicle Division have acknowledged that the creators of the multimedia
entertainment _Patlabor_ accurately predicted many of the difficulties
their sections would encounter.

In fact, it may be that my earlier speculation concerning Astro's reason
for seeking out Tezuka Osamu were inaccurate, and there never had been an
"Astro Boy" comic strip or animation in his world's history. But just as
with the predictions above, it is possible that revealing the truth in
this manner made it more likely that it happened. 

Returning to Astro again: after revealing the future to Tezuka, the robot
revealed that he was "dying". Possibly the tale of his "pilgramage" to
Fuji-zan was true, or possibly the cartoonist invented it to cover the
actual location of Astro's remains. It is my belief, however, that Astro
ceased to function in 1951 ... only a few months before or after his
comics would premiere.

But I do not believe that was the end of it. Instead, I believe that
something lingered in his remains. At some point in our future, when a
distraught and disturbed scientist is moved to create an amazing robot in
his late son's image, that something will move into the body and give it
life, just as Tezuka portrayed it as doing. Perhaps that thing will be
what Cybertronians are said to call "a spark"; perhaps it is what Shinto
refers to as "kami".

Or perhaps it is as simple as what a fairy is said to have told a
velveteen rabbit, many years ago: "Love makes you real."



Footnotes

[1] Dr. Charles McNichol (1912?-1979) essentially drafted Tezuka to assist
him at the triage center he established shortly after Gojira's first
assault. McNichol's eventual wife, Mai Katsuragi (1925-1972) records that,
during the incident, an American executive insisted that his slightly
injured son should receive treatment in preference to more seriously
injured Japanese children, going so far as to say he would pay for such
preferential treatment. McNichols, who had been hideously scarred in the
Spanish Civil War, told the executive that he would immediately treat the 
boy if his father immediately paid him one million American dollars.

[2] Indeed, I suspect that one detail that Tezuka deliberately fudged was
the date of Astro's creation, given as 2003 in the 1970s retelling. I
suspect that it is actually a few decades in the future (around the 2040s)
and that the cartoonist moved it backwards to make it more plausible to
the audience. (Ironically, he believed that the great differences between
Astro's world and ours would develop more quickly than they actually
have.)

[3] Schroeder uncovered the possibility that _Star Trek: The Next
Generation_ was made based on accounts written by an individual claiming
to be Mark Twain. I suspect that this is only part of the story,
considering the many references to Japanese animation in the series' first
few seasons, and the fact that that era's _Enterprise_ had a sister ship
named _Yamato_.




	
		
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