A man tries to resurrect his dead son as a machine, fails to love him, then abandons him. That robot becomes humanity's greatest protector anyway. The 1980 series takes Osamu Tezuka's most heartbreaking premise and refuses to look away from it, Astro Boy doesn't fight villains because he's programmed to, he fights them because the world rejected him and he loves it anyway. The animation moves like watercolor come alive; every frame costs something. This is a show about a child who will never be the child someone wanted, learning to matter on his own terms.

Professor Tenma builds a robot boy in the image of his late son Tobio, but soon realizes his creation can never truly replace what he has lost. The robot is then kidnapped and taken to a robot circus in America, until Dr. Ochanomizu rescues him and takes him in. Renamed Tetsuwan Atom, he becomes Japan's crime-fighting hero. In a future where autonomous machines are a source of political and social conflict, Atom holds pacifist views, and his childlike naivety often sits uneasily with the battles he must fight. His pursuit of justice brings him into clashes with many different factions and confronts him with the harsh realities of the world. This 1980 color remake of the 1963 classic mixes action, adventure and science fiction across 52 episodes.