BoingBoing reader Eric and friends celebrated the Japanese techno-animation hero's birthday in San Francisco — evidence in the photo below, photo gallery here. A snapshot of the robot boy's birth is here. More from the New York Times:
Back in 1951, Osamu Tezuka, a Japanese cartoonist, dreamed up Astro Boy, a lovable robot with laser fingertips, searchlight eyes, machine guns in his black shorts, and rocket jets flaming from his red boots. To make the 100,000-horsepower tyke seem really futuristic, the artist gave his creation a truly far-out birth date: April 7, 2003. Tokyo may not yet have flying cars, but Astro Boy's official birthday on Monday marks the coming of age of Japan's animation industry. No longer marginalized, the bare-chested rocket boy with the spiky hair, known in Japanese as Tetsuwan Atomu, is being hailed with fireworks, costume parades, intellectual seminars, an exhibit in Parliament and a $1 million diamond-and ruby-encrusted likeness in a downtown department store display."We Japanese want to live alongside robots, that is why we love Astro Boy," said Takao Imai, a 72-year-old lawyer, dressed in a white smock and a white wig of cotton curls to look like Professor Elefun, Astro Boy's eccentric scientist protector. Carrying a white cotton Astro Boy birthday cake, Mr. Imai was preparing to parade with his 5-year-old grandson Akinojo Ogura, who had just wowed a preparade rally with a spirited rendition of the Astro Boy song.
Update: Real-life astro-boys (cute babies dressed up as robots for Astroboy celebrations in Japan) here.
link to NYT story,
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