The Ohio State University

Happy Birthday, Atom! Celebrating Tezuka's Astro Boy honors one of the world's most popular cartoon characters. The exhibit highlights the Cartoon Research Library's growing collection of printed manga (Japanese cartoons). According to Frederik L. Schodt, "The word manga (pronounced 'mahngah') can mean caricature, cartoon, comic strip, comic book, or animation." It is open through May 30, 2003 and is part of a series of events being sponsored by University Libraries, Institute for Japanese Studies/East Asian Studies Center, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Office of International Affairs, Multicultural Center, Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design, Japan Student Organization, Japanese Club, Anime Club, Manga Club, and Japan-America Society of Central Ohio.

The child robot, Tetsuwan Atomu ("Mighty Atom"), known as Astro Boy in English, was the earliest and greatest success among characters created by Japanese cartoonist Tezuka Osamu (1928-1989). In the original story that began publication in 1951 and was turned into Japan's first animated television series in 1963, the robot character was brought to life on April 7, 2003. This exhibit celebrates this fictional "birthday" at the moment when history catches up with the events described in the manga.

The exhibition is selected from resources available in the Cartoon Research Library about Tezuka, called "God of Manga" in Japan, including an original draft of a cartoon set during the American Occupation of Japan. Four variant versions of the story of Astro Boy's birth are on exhibit, ranging from the first, created in 1951 to the 1975 edition that is the basis for the English translation. Tezuka embellished the story in different ways while retaining the basic story outline. His artistic style also evolved.

To complement Tezuka's robot, other materials about the history of robots in Japan are displayed. In the Tokugawa period (1603-1867) when the government forbade military and industrial use of machinery, artisans turned their skills to creating amusing mechanical toys and automata (karakuri ningyo), a source from which the popularity of robots emerged in Japan. The term robot was coined by the Czech writers Karel and Josef Capek. Karel Capek's play, R.U.R. or Rossum's Universal Robots (published in Czechoslovakia in 1920; translated into English in 1923) popularized the word. This work became known in Japan quickly and spawned a "robot boom" in the 1920s.

In addition to Astro Boy, there are many other robots in manga. Especially popular were those drawn by a team of cartoonists, Fujimoto Hiroshi (1933-1996) and Abiko Motoo (1934- ), whose cartoons appeared under the pen name, Fujiko Fujio. Facsimiles of drawings by Fujimoto Hiroshi (pen name: Fujiko F. Fujio) reprinted in 2000 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Doraemon, the popular cat-like robot character that he created, are exhibited as well as works by Ishinomori Shotaro, Nagai Go, and others.

In Japan, manga and anime influenced the post-World War II generation of engineers to dream about creating humanoid robots in the future. Most recently, such dreams have come to fruition with the Honda's humanoid robot, ASIMO. The exhibit includes representations of this achievement as well.

The works in this exhibition are from the Ohio State University Libraries and, except as noted, all are from the Cartoon Research Library.