Jun-Daily Practice day1-1960s

Origin of robot animation-Astro Boy

January 1, 1963 marks the birth of serialized TV anime in Japan. That is the day when the first thirty-minute episode of Osamu Tezuka’s “Tetsuwan Atom” (literally “Mighty Atom,” aka “Astro Boy”) was broadcast. An instant hit, it kicked off the era of mass-produced televised animation in Japan, with a great many production companies both new and old jumping into the fray. At this point, shows generally centered on human-sized heroes that were actually more like hybrids of man and machine than true robots. This trend came to play a major role in shaping the development of Japanese anime culture.

Animators designed robot characters with sleek, gleaming bodies, evoking the clean new roadways, the speeding bullet trains, and shining skyscrapers that were rising up all around them.

Early robot shows were deeply influenced by a “modern-day folklore” of limitless scientific potential. The televised anime of this era was a perfect fit for this moment in Japanese history, portraying a future where science would make life better for everyone. Unlike manga, printed in black and white on rough paper, anime was painted on plastic sheets called cels, giving it a bright luster. When projected on the sheet of glass used as the display for a cathode-ray tube, it accentuated the robotic gleam of the characters all
the more.

For the largely still impoverished children of Japan, this “clean look” glimmered like an arrow pointing to the future. Among the generation who grew up watching the shows in realtime, the first thing that inevitably comes to mind isn’t the actual storylines but rather the merchandise. Specifically, the “magic” rub-off transfers packaged with Marble Chocolates. The shiny, smooth transfers perfectly mimicked the texture of the images on the television screen, and their “robotic” appeal kicked off a fad among
children. In other words, among children of the era, these broader qualities in and of themselves were perceived as “robotic,” and connected to the changes in the cityscape around them.