Too Akira-ish.
Too Akira-ish.
The whole movie seems somehow a remake of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, with some of the Tezuka character designs (Maria, Kenichi, Higeoyaji, Rock, and so on) guest starred in it, plus some looks and feels of recent Sci-Fi stories.
They should have just stick with the Osamu Tezuka kind of storyline instead. And used more Tezuka-ish character designs, Kenichi looks too cool looking in "Metropolis", that's Rock's departement (Rock is sort of the cool bad boy version of Kenichi).
Personally, the movie is too long winded, and they don't seem to be using either the Fritz Lang's Metropolis storyline nor it seems to be to quite Tezuka-ish.
It's quite a mix of storylines, the whole robot being made as a disquise person it's just like the originial Maria robot in the Fritz Lang movie, also the robot being built as a replacement of a real child is like Atom, though the rising of a robot made in the image of a dead child to God-hood status not to mentioned the rising of the robot class against their masters is more like the recent Atom T.V. series.
The story was kinda caught in the middle, it was too Akira-ish (with the whole dark Sci-Fi look), but in the same time, it try to be family oriented but isn't quite family oriented.
It would be better if they made Kenichi as the innocent rich kid with a righteous heart who in fall in love with Maria as the girl from down under who is quite popular with the people down under, then a robot was made in Maria's form to control the population down under, only then to have it gone haywire and make everyone from upside and down under fight each other, just similiar to the originial Fritz Lang movie.
Anyway. Wasn't the girl robot's name is "Maria"? I forgot, my memory is kinda fuzzy on the movie.
It would make sense if she was named "Maria", there's a "Maria" character in the originial Fritz Lang movie and also I think that the particular Tezuka character design that was used on her came from a Tezuka character that was also named "Maria".
Oh well... At least they include Higeoyaji and make him related to Kenichi, he and Kenichi after all have guest starred in many Tezuka stories together.
Unlike in the recent Tetsuwan Atom: Astro Boy (or was Astro Boy: Tetsuwan Atom? I forgot, I know that the North American version uses a reverse style of the title) series, where they don't show him at all until the later half of the series, and worse, they don't make him as full regulars like in the originial manga series.
I don't understand on why they would make him related to Yuko (or what ever, the Ochanomizu's assistant). It would be better to make him related to Midori-sensei (the teacher of Atom's class in that series), and then took place as the new teacher of Atom's class. I don't mind they kept Midori-sensei as a guest star though, I like that kind of character design.
I find the Higeoyaji who is a school teacher that is part Private Investigator and also on where Atom looks for guidance and support is much more interesting rather a Higeoyaji that is a full time Private Investigator that sometimes help Atom.
But then again, there are many missing Atom elements in that series, one of them are Atom's robot parents. In the originial storyline, the character design for Atom's mother is Mitchi from Osamu Tezuka's "Metropolis" series (not related to the Fritz Lang movie and the recent movie), who is a flying robot in a large city, who's sort of like an earlier version of Atom.
Then again, I don't understand either over the whole Kenichi being a tanned boy in that series either.