editors
JERRY BECK (LA)
AMID AMIDI (NY)
Astro Boy wants a Hybrid
May 6, 2007 12:02 am


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

(via Japan Probe)

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ZekeySpaceyLizard says:
05/6/07  1:04am

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.

 
John Paul Cassidy says:
05/6/07  11:18am

What? No Ambassador Magma?

Otherwise, this commercial was really cute.

 
Andre says:
05/6/07  1:05pm

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 says:
05/6/07  2:15pm

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

 
Dave Silva says:
05/6/07  8:40pm

Wow, and I thought the US was bad…

 
Soos says:
05/6/07  11:39pm

How sad.

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

 
joecab says:
05/7/07  7:55am

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!

 
Joel Schlosberg says:
05/7/07  2:13pm

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

 
Chris Sobieniak says:
05/7/07  8:28pm

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).

 
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