Welcome to Astro Boy Fanweek 2024, a weeklong prompt-based creative challenge to celebrate the birthday of everybody's favorite robot boy! Beginning on April 1 and ending on April 7, this event aims to bring the fandom together and encourage new contributions to the community through the use of prompts and spark words to add some fuel to the fires of your imaginations.
There are 35 different prompts in total for the participants to work with, including the alternative options, and a special thanks goes out to @drillbeeautomaton for helping the moderator fine-tune the prompt list beforehand (and for being a bottomless well of encouragement, support, and friendship throughout the whole process). You can find all the necessary information about the event here, and if you've got any questions you can head over to my askbox, or hit me up on @boyrobott. Can't wait to see what you guys come up with!
Full prompt list below the cut.
Astro Boy Fanweek 2024 Prompt List:
April 1: Friendship l Rebuild l Honesty
April 2: Memory l Trembling l Electricity
April 3: Lonely l Different l Starlight
April 4: Revelation l Fulfillment l Goodbye
April 5: Peaceful l Novice l Golden
April 6: Innocence l Responsibility l Lie
April 7: Birthday l Surprise l Special
Alternative Prompts:
April 1: Routine l Helpful
April 2: Focus l Accident
April 3: Novelty l Consider
April 4: Nervous l Old-fashioned
April 5: Experiment l Breakfast
April 6: Opportunity l Eavesdrop
April 7: Surveillance l Identity
I absolutely LOVE the Pluto manga, not only does it give more Astro boy content as a whole but the anime adaption looks incredibly promising! AND I'M HYPED
BUT
The ONE, the ONE SINGLE thing that bugs me that I see some fans of Pluto do when describing Pluto is that it is Astro for adults, or that Astro is the kiddie version of Pluto AND AS A FAN OF BOTH MAKES ME WANT TO START TYING PEOPLE'S ARMS INTO PRETZEL KNOTS.
Not only because Astro boy came out FIRST as Pluto is a version of ASTRO BOY not the other way around, but because PLUTO took a dark part in the ASTRO BOY STORY and expanded on it in it's own unique and creative way, ASTRO AND PLUTO ARE BOTH DARK, BOTH ARE INCREDIBLY DARK, NEITHER ONE IS MORE "DARKER" THAN THE OTHER
There is so much darkness and tragedy in the original Astro boy series, but the difference between Astro and Pluto is that despite the tragedy Astro boy focuses a lot more on the positives of life, being able to live a happy life despite some of the negativity that surrounds you. That doesn't make it so it is less dark or more "for kids". Rather, it gives a sense of realism and hope, that you can live happy even if the world can be dark sometimes. And even though Pluto focuses on the more darker aspects of Tezuka's story, it has that same message of hope, Dr Oshay said it himself in the Pluto manga.
SO, THEY ARE BOTH EQUALLY GOOD AND EQUALLY DARK BUT THE MESSAGE OF POSITIVITY AND HEARTFELT AND HOPE AND FAMILY IS A HUGE ASPECT OF THE STORY. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND LOOKING INTO ASTRO BOY JUST AS MUCH AS I RECOMMEND YOU GIVE PLUTO A SHOT.
AND IF I HEAR *ONE* MORE PERSON SAY ONE IS DARKER THAN THE OTHER I *WILL* BE IN YOUR WALLS.
I personally love the 63 version because it's... Just all over the place and weird, pretty funny. But it also has a certain charm to it and is pretty faithful to the manga, you can tell they tried even with a low budget. 2003 was also a really interesting show and I really like it's take on characters like Atlas and Tenma. 80s was cute but honestly pretty boring and forgettable. But that's just my opinion.