Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

This is a really short teaser (less than a minute), but based on this, I'm looking forward to the Astro Boy movie. I would have preferred a cel-animated Astro Boy movie, but this still looks fun. I just hope it has a little bit of the retro tone and feel. It'll be interesting to hear what Fred Schodt has to say about this movie when it comes out (The Astro Boy Essays is well worth reading).

http://www.moviefone.com/movie/astro-boy/30167/hd/480

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y23aI4HO_w8

Trailer looks nice, but...what's the story about? / never heard of astroboy

Astro Boy (aka "Tetsuwan Atomu") is a character created by Osamu Tezuka (a manga artist and animator frequently called "The God of Manga") in the 1950s who has a place in Japanese popular cultural somewhat comparable to the place that Superman has in American popular culture. The 1960s animated series based on Astro Boy was the first Japanese anime to be shown on tv in the United States. The entire Astro Boy manga series is available in English from Dark Horse Comics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astro_boy

Astro-boy's also arguably the first manga in Japan and the U.S. (or I could be wrong)

Actually, it's not the first manga. Manga in its current form developed after WWII, but "sequential art" (to use Scott McCloud's term) has existed in Japan for at least a few hundred years.

IIRC, the first translated manga available in the United States was Keiji Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen.

I'm wrong sometimes.

but they're doing a CGI movie? that sounds cool.