Astro Boy and the God of Comics

A highly visual, retro-sci-fi performance about Astro Boy and its creator Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka is admired as “the God of Manga” in his native Japan for inventing modern manga comics. Initially created in Japan’s post-war era, Tezuka envisioned Astro Boy as an embodiment of a peaceful use of nuclear energy–a robot created by a scientist after the death of his son, an eternal boy with the optimism and innocence to face down any adventures that face him.

Onoda Power’s play combines Tezuka’s life, the history of Japanese animation, and the fictional world of Astro Boy, a crime-fighting boy robot. Astro Boy’s quirky visual style slams against post-WWII fascination with technology and destruction, and the relationship between creator and his work. It is a high /low-tech multimedia extravaganza, featuring on-stage drawing, interactive video, and 1960s-style animation.