Astro Boy wants a Hybrid

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on

Osamu Tezuka’s biggest stars endorse the Toyota Prius on its 10th anniversary.

(via Japan Probe)

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  • http://zekeyspaceylizard.blogspot.com ZekeySpaceyLizard

    Something strangely sinister about this. Shame the video was so blurry, I wanted to see if Kenichi or Shunsaku got a cameo or something. You can’t see hardly anything by the end. Darn youtube compression.

  • http://ryuuseipro.deviantart.com John Paul Cassidy

    What? No Ambassador Magma?

    Otherwise, this commercial was really cute.

  • Andre

    That video looks like it’d be gorgeous in regular TV quality….it’d be nice to see it as an extra on a future Tezuka anime release.
    The appearances by Black Jack, Kimba and Princess Knight were nice to see too, alongside other lessknown Tezuka manga characters [I noticed Rock, Phoenix, .

  • Chris Sobieniak

    Don’t forget Acetylene Lamp (the one with the candle on the back of his head)! :-)

  • http://vice.parodius.com/ Dave Silva

    Wow, and I thought the US was bad…

  • Soos

    How sad.

    Does anyone know how Tezuka felt about corporate shilling while he was alive?

  • joecab

    Yep, sad to see the characters used this way. I wonder who has to approve this? His estate? How does this work in Japan?

    And Kimba right next to his adult self? Huh!

  • http://joelschlosberg.blogspot.com/ Joel Schlosberg

    I’m surprised nobody’s pointed out the irony that Astro Boy himself is powered by atomic energy.

  • Chris Sobieniak

    There tends to be a split among fans over these things. Technically when he was still alive, his character had endorsed a lot of things anyway, so this is nothing new. I really don’t see it as a bad thing personally, it’s not a total sell-out sort of thing IMO (we just have the characters getting all “Ooh and “Awing” and the car and that’s that).