Astro Boy

Astro Boy is a science fiction series set in a futuristic world where robots co-exist with humans. Its focus is on the adventures of the titular Astro Boy, sometimes called simply Astro, a powerful android created by the head of the Ministry of Science, Doctor Tenma, known as Dr. Astor Boynton II in the 1960s English dub, Dr. Boynton in the 1980s English dub.

Dr. Tenma created Astro to replace his son Tobio (named 'Astor' in the 1960s English dub, and 'Toby' in both the 1980s English dub and the 2009 film), who was killed in a car accident. In the 2003 anime, Tobio is shown as having run away from home before the accident. In the 2009 film, Toby's death was caused by an incident with the Peacekeeper, a weaponized robot.

The Astro Boy series consists of several storylines. In April 1951, Atom, known as Astro Boy or just Astro in English, originally appeared as a supporting character in the Tezuka comic Atom Taishi (Ambassador Atom, sometimes referred to as Captain Atom), which appeared in Shonen, a monthly magazine for boys. Tezuka then created a comic series in which Astro was the main character. According to Schodt, Tezuka created Astro to be a "21st-century reverse-Pinocchio, a nearly perfect robot who strove to become more human and emotive and to serve as an interface between man and machine."

As Tezuka's art style advanced, Astro Boy "became more modern and cute" to appeal to his audience of boys in elementary school. Schodt added that the page layouts used in Astro Boy episodes "became more creative." When designing supporting characters, Tezuka sometimes created characters that were homages to Walt Disney, the creator of Mickey Mouse and Disney Princesses, Max Fleischer, the producer of animated shorts featuring characters such as Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, and Superman, and other American animators. In several of the Astro Boy stories, the first few pages were in color.

Astro Boy has sold approximately 100 million copies. The series is widely considered one of the greatest manga and anime series of all time. In a 2006 "experts" ranking for the "Greatest Manga of All Time" held by the Japan Media Arts Festival for their 10th anniversary, Astro Boy ranked 6th, the 3rd highest Tezuka manga on the list after Phoenix and Black Jack. In addition, the 1963 anime adaptation ranked 2nd in the "Greatest Anime of All Time" list. In a 2009 poll held by Asahi Shimbun for the "Greatest Shōwa Manga", Astro Boy ranked 5th, the highest ranked Tezuka manga on the list.

Those who have cited Astro Boy as an influence include manga artists Katsuhiro Otomo, Go Nagai, Naoki Urasawa, Akira Toriyama and animation directors Hayao Miyazaki and Yoshiyuki Tomino.