reborn.

hi, i'm Danny! she/her, 25, been here for ages just with a new account :] i have a variety of interests, mostly in video games/art/writing.

i mostly reblog posts i enjoy and I’ll occasionally post art of my current interest(s)

some content may be 18+ in terms of humor, but I don’t post anything suggestive

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https://ko-fi.com/dannyanny

@leidibubs302 Hello hope you don’t mind that I respond with a post instead of a comment :) I have a lot of thoughts

I realize I’ve never shared why I am as caught in the middle for this story as I am!

I don’t like much of any version of Bem’s stories, and all for their own reasons.

From what I remember in the actual 60s episode, he does explode? Maybe it’s not as explicitly shown, but I could’ve sworn it basically ends the same as the manga. (Maybe sub and dub are different. I watched sub.)

Now I can’t say that I hate any version, I just don’t like how contrived the originals are. In order for the “betrayal” to happen to cause Bem to mistrust Atom and hate everyone, Ochanomizu has to mistrust Atom first- which to me is really really strange.

Even with the consideration for their dynamic in the manga/anime being more of a mentor and student relationship, the fact that this episode happens so much later down the line in both just screams forced mischaracterization. On one hand you can think these are simply serialized and stuff may happen out of order, or things change, or stories will happen just to happen, but honestly with all of that in mind everyone feels super out of character. Atom breaks his promise to Bem immediately and tells someone else about him (Ochanomizu). Ochanomizu doesn’t believe Atom to be making a sound decision here, for whatever reason, and instead believes the three random men who have appeared- and by the way Ochanomizu is much more lenient to the fact that Bem is a weapon testing device, or something like that, which is honestly pretty dehumanizing and hey man weren’t we trying to not do this to robots?

So, on top of everyone feeling wildly out of character, we also have one major thing, which is going to be more on personal taste: I’m not a fan of self sacrifice character arcs.

I’ve grown incredibly tired of them. Not to mention, they happen so, so often in Astro Boy, all the time, everywhere, in all adaptations. I’m super tired of it. I understand WHY, given historical and cultural reasons, but from a story standpoint, you step back and see that none of the robots that have the heart to create the community and change for the rest of their kind get to live, except Atom (and even he died in the manga and original show but the narrative didn’t let him stay dead).

When you have in mind that robots are discriminated and repressed against, and are trying to co-exist with humans and prove that they can be real, too, the fact that none of the ones that show good examples of their kind get to live is super depressing and just… feels wrong?

Once the character sacrifices themself and dies, that’s it. They may be mourned for a little, and their act is respected and honored, but the impact is temporary- especially in the setting of Astro Boy. The episodic nature of the world and story means that none of these sacrifices get to mean anything outside of their debut.

Well. Anyway. That starts to deviate into another subject.

Onto the 2001 OVA.

The 2001 OVA is overly simplified and makes Bem a weepy sad baby without much personality.

Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s cute and deserves 500 treats and warm blankets, but in terms of a personality… it feels so empty. He hates fighting, and… that’s the most direct character we get from him? He appears shy and considerate but also quick to act on his feelings (he was scared and ran off when he first awoke, and later when he goes up to try and stop the planet on his own he’s acting seemingly from impulse).

What do we get to actually connect to him and feel for him in the final story beats of the short when he goes up to stop the planet? It’s a short, and yeah you can only do so much- but it feels really empty.

We can get the impression that his desire for peace extends to him helping the community, which leads to him helping Atom in saving people. It’s nice and it’s cute. It’s just that.

The planet coming in also feels super contrived. It’s honing in on? Bem? Because he left? Okay. 😭

By the end he lives, and that’s fine. It doesn’t feel like it comes from him, though, or that he was even doing anything. The reason for him to go up was pretty vague and it’s hard to tell how he was even supposed to sacrifice himself to save things.

These OVAs are pretty much all super dramatic I will say, so I guess that’s just in line for the direction they were going for with these- plus the fact these were all theater releases they probably wanted something to really hit hard.

However.

When you’re thinking about Bem’s actual original story, I feel that it misses the point.

What we get from the original is that Bem learns to love the Earth. In that, he learns he wants to keep it safe and will do whatever it takes for it to live on. We see what it took for him to love Earth- that someone took care of him, lived with him, and even in a rising apocalypse, lived on Earth and spent the days peacefully. The grandmother he lives with doesn’t get much attention- but it’s that time spent that matters for context. Bem learns to love because he gets loved.

That doesn’t happen in the OVA. He already comes in wanting to protect the Earth and do whatever it takes. We don’t see him learning anything.

Again, in the end, you can say it’s a short to be a short, but hey, anyone who creates something is going to get feedback on it.

So those are my reasons for not being as big a fan of any of Bem’s stories. I really like the base concept, but I don’t feel that any version does it justice all the way through.