Atom: The Beginning

Atom: The Beginning is another re-imagining of the classic anime, Astro Boy. The way it goes about doing this is handled a lot better than maybe it's MAL score might suggest. I thought the story was great overall. Each mini arc that was given to us throughout the series was interesting. In particular, I thought the last part of the story was amazing. The art and animation wasn't anything spectacular but I also had no complaints about it either. I share most of the sentiments for the soundtrack and sound design as well. The character designs felt familiar yet updated for a more modern look. Where Atom: TheBeginning really shines is with its characters. The way how they interacted with one another, Ochanomizu and Umatarou in particular, made for an entertaining show. I also thought that the main and the supporting characters all got sufficient development. In closing, Atom: The Beginning was an anime that I was able to get a lot of enjoyment from and I'm surprised at how underrated the show actually is. I definitely encourage you all to give this anime a watch!

Honestly, as much as I somewhat enjoyed this series, I can't help but think that so much of its potential was left unused and wasted. Atom: The Beginning had a good basis upon which a fantastic series could have been established, the story was there, the characters were there, what could go wrong, right? Well, this is usually what happens when what a series has to truly offer is left unexplored, here we had the concept of artificial consciousness, AI is one thing, but to give a machine a soul, to make it sentient and aware, to have it feel and connect on a "human" level,it's exactly that what the series first hints that it will be focusing on, instead, it was left ignored and the application of it thrown aside until the couple last episodes, and even then it wasn't fully explored or given the attention it deserved. Most of the episodes presented were fillers, and yes an argument could be made that those helped establish more character development, but I feel like that's something that could have been done while focusing on the actual plot of the series, instead, we get a touch of useless scenes here, a bit of useless twists there, and a side dash of drama to top it all, sigh.. Overall, this is was an "alright" anime deserving of a general rating of 7.

It is quite sad that few have seen this hidden gem of a series. As a person, who never saw Astroboy before, I was quite surprised how well this series was able to keep me interested even without me understanding refrences that were made about this old 60s anime. Story 7/10: I think that the weakest part of the series was its story. Until this anime reached Robot Tournmant arc story was a bit too similar to Slice of Life type of series. Usually I dislike such stories because way too often those series doesn't manage to make me interested in those characters from early onand thus doesn't keep me intrested when characters are having minor and relatively risk free adventures. Surprisingly my experience with this series was opposite to that. From early on I found most characters endering (especially A106) and so I didn't found it hard to enjoy their adventures/events eventhough they were relatively small in nature and and relatively insignificant. When Robot Tournament took place I was already invested enough that I felt struggle of A106 when he was facing against Mars. Looking back to this series I would say that it was quite important to have those small stories before big tournamant, because they made me care even more about those characters. Although I should mention that I would have not seen them so positively before I saw tournament arc. Art 9/10: The art for both OP and ED were just gorgeous. I also liked that there weren't a lot of CG used for robots. Thanks to that I didn't felt that those robots doesn't fit with rest of the series (unlike with most other shows that have mechas or robots in them). Sound 10/10: Both OP and ED were very good. I really liked OP that managed to make me pumped for this series and also had few character moments (for example them being or beach or driving next to coast) that managed to make characters in this series even more endering for me :) I also liked rest of the soundtrack. Especially one song that managed to get me to tear up (that happens relatively rarely). I don't know the name of this song but it for example played when in last episode A106 jumped into the air and saw something dreamlike. I can't wait to listen whole sountrack when it comes out. It is honestly one of my favorite soundtracks, although not as good as my all time favorite FMA Brothehood's soundtrack. Character 9/10: A106 was just amazing. Creators of this series managed to capture something quite unique.. a character who was both robotic and human at the same time. How he felt, what he thought and how he saw the world was just captivative. In some other series (f.e Ghost in the Shell) character is usually ether more human or more robotic. But for some reason I felt that he was nether and both at the same time. Unlike some other series I bought into his struggle of identity. Other characters i enjoyed as well. I especially liked Ran and Hiroshi. I liked Ran's deep interest in engineering (especially robot engineering) and how she goes to salvege old parts so that she can fullfil her interest. And eventhough she was basically small engineer, I still felt that it didn't lessen the fact that she was still a child. Only character I didn't like very much was Tenma. I felt that his motivation weren't explained well enough. He changed his opinions way too often based on a whim, rather than based on a proper reason (especially decisions that involved fate of A106) and that is why I just didn't understood him and his thinking. Hopefully we get 2nd season that delves more into Tenma. I really liked how immersed I was into the story of those character. I felt like they were all my old friends that I have known for years :) Overall very good charaters Enjoyment 10/10: I really liked and enjoyed watching this series. Although I understand that it might not be so enjoyable for others, who see first half of series way too slow and who didn't enjoy anime's characters as much as I did. But at least for me this series was a blast.. and hoefully it will be as good for others as well :) Overall 10/10 I know, I know, mathematically it is 9/10, but because I enjoyed this series so much I can't see myself putting this series lower score than 10. Story could have been better but for me enjoyment of other parts of this series closes my eyes to this one gripe I have with this series. Hopefully you all understand :)

This has to be one of the most snubbed anime from its season. Can't say it's exceptional, nor would I strongly recommend it but I was still surprised that something so recent and generally fun went by unnoticed. This show holds few surprises or twists so I think if premise got you interested, it should be a safe watch. Art: solid all around. It's hard to praise it for anything in particular but in this day and age just having a good color direction and backgrounds that don't look like lazily filtered photos is already nice I suppose. Character designs are a mix of genericanime and modernized Tezuka designs, made to fit among the more recent anime manga art styles. It can be a bit jarring to see plain as day anime character next one of the more unique looking Tenma and Ochanomizu but overall you get used to it. Robots are the strongest part for from visual standpoint. All of them looked quite distinct and their outward appearance served as good reflection of their practical purpose. Atom's emotionless face felt very appropriate for a robot with a heart that only starts to learn how to feel. Animation: you guessed it. Nothing really impressive here either, which was rather disappointing after OP that boats brilliant animation from many talented artists. Sure early on there are a few nice cuts here and there but later on show switched to (admittedly very competent) 3D and at that point most of the credit goes to direction that made even very limited animation look nice. Sounds: not even gonna say much here to save everyone's time. It's good but the only thing that stood out to me were the robot voice acting. Before Atom learns to recognize emotion a bit better he genuinely sounds like it's all going through some text to speech generator. Story: Atom is a mostly episodic in nature so don't be fooled when people casually throw the word "filler" around. Up to robot wrestling, the episodes are all nice and self-contained stories about robots helping out people. There are some overarching plot elements bit they are rather insignificant. In the final episode it all comes together to form a bare minimum of satisfying ending but judging by preview slot in the last episode the show is intended to have another season. As is all plot comes down to Atom developing consciousness and his AI evolving to kind of form a personality through prior experience but it doesn't go anywhere else beyond that for aforementioned reasons. Characters: Tenma is a power maniac, Ochanomizu is very nice, Mustachio doesn't trust robots, Ran wants to fuck Atom. Extremely basic but not without charm. Funfactor: It's a fun little show but I find it hard to recommend unless you're already interested in it to any extent.

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