Arts & Entertainment : Theater Review
21.05.12
, Natsu Onoda Power’s brisk, vibrant, surprisingly moving sci-fi spectacle-cum-artist biography. Superficially an adaptation of the Atomic Age manga about an empathetic flying Pinocchio built by a scientist to replace his dead son, the show blasts off when its helmet-haired hero does, on a self-sacrificing mission to save us puny humans from a lethal spike in solar radiation.
Does he succeed, or do we all cook? Given the optimistic sensibility of cartoonist Osamu Tezuka, the show’s other title character, our odds seem good, but—SPOILER—we never find out. After quickly establishing the planetary threat via some funny newscasts from a stentorian Joe Brack, the show’s 10 “episodes” glide backward in time. As the piece morphs from the origin story of Astro Boy—powered, as superhero origins must be, by the twin booster rockets of tragedy and altruism—into a loving portrait of the ‘bot-boy’s real-life creator, it steadily gathers emotional resonance to match its technical brilliance and deft ensemble work. It’s a stunner.
Source: Washington City Paper