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Astro Boy (アストロボーイ・鉄腕アトム, Asutoro Bōi Tetsuwan Atomu^?, lit. "Astro Boy: Mighty Atom") is a remake of the 1960s anime series of the same name; both series are adapted from the manga by Osamu Tezuka.

This series, which first aired during the 1980s, placed more focus on Astro's robotic skills--and had a somewhat darker storyline--than the previous incarnation of the series. While mostly light-hearted, and intended for general audiences, the series could be quite sombre and sad at times. It wasn't uncommon for robots or human characters to suffer for their actions or the misdeeds of others. During the course of the series, Astro gained a robotic mother, father and sister. The scripts of this version were largely written by Osamu Tezuka, although other writers were also involved. The story introduced Astro's evil brother Atlas, who was created from stolen blueprints by Count Walpurgis, a European arms manufacturer.

Characters' personalities in this series are somewhat different from other versions of the series. Astro himself comes across as much more child-like and innocent than his counterpart from the 2003 series; he seems quite unsure of himself at first, but gains confidence with time.

The series ran for 52 episodes (edited down to 51 episodes for the English versions) and did not have a proper ending (although the final episode in the Japanese run, "Astro's First Love", featured a special introduction by Osamu Tezuka). The US dub, while staying true to the original Japanese version, aired the episodes in a different order from the Japanese version.

There are two different English language dubs: one version which was shown in the US and Australia, and another version for audiences in Canada. In the Canadian version (which was also available in French), most of the characters had different names from their American counterparts. (Uran, for example, was named "Sarah", and Dr. Boynton was named "Professor Balfus".) Due to laws which limited advertising on children's programming, the Canadian versions featured extra, "filler" material in every episode: a pre-title sequence which recapped Astro's origin, and an epilogue wherein Astro would give a brief "report" about that episode's adventure to a computer named Geronimo. (The report would invariably contain a minor, intentional error about the story, and a narrator would encourage the viewers to write down Astro's mistake, and compare answers with their friends.)

Read more at Wikipedia.org