This is the show that starts with a father looking at the boy he built and deciding he isn't good enough, and it never really lets you forget it. Astro is not a hero because he's strong, he's a hero because Tenma threw him on the scrap heap for the crime of not growing up, and Ochanomizu picked him up anyway and fought to have robots recognized as something more than property. Watch it in black and white and you can see Tezuka's crew inventing the whole vocabulary of TV anime in real time: held cels, three-frame walks, the same rocket-launch footage burned into your memory by episode forty because that was the only way to make a weekly show on that budget. Those limits become style, all stark contrast and stillness broken by one perfect motion. Nearly 200 episodes of a small robot doing right by a world that keeps asking whether he counts. The theme song still plays in your head unprompted, and so does the look on Tenma's face.

A grief-stricken scientist builds a robot boy to replace his son, who died in a car accident, only to cast the machine aside when he sees it is an imperfect copy that will never grow. Rescued by a kind professor who champions robot rights, the discarded android gets a second chance at purpose. Renamed Astro Boy, he becomes a defender of Japan and the world, drawing on seven special powers and 100,000 horsepower of strength. Astro's mission reaches beyond fighting rogue robots and criminals. He hopes to show the world how much good robots can do, and he treats humans and fellow machines alike with kindness. Between battles and trips to other planets he still finds time for school, backed by his teacher, his friends, his sister Uran and his robot family. The series pairs mecha action and adventure with drama in a world where humans and robots live side by side.