Astro Boy, the futuristic robot who was the focus of a television cartoon boom in the 1960s and who just had his "birthday," is making a comeback on film and television screens and in new and reproduced comic books.

The late Osamu Tezuka, who developed the robotic hero in "manga" comic books and animation, set April 7, 2003, as the day Atom, as he is known here in Japan, was created.

Astro Boy made his debut in the monthly magazine Shonen (Boy) in 1952, emerged on TV in the first full-scale domestic cartoon series in 1963 and became a national figure during the boom it enjoyed during its four-year run.