Astro Boy, created by animation pioneer Osamu Tezuka, is a superhero robot with a soft, adorable face, a feature that partly explains his global fame.
But the robot, called Tetsuwan (Iron Arm) Atomu in Japanese, might be even better if he had a soft body to go along with the face. At least that may have been what a Web animator who goes by the name Rarecho was thinking when he came up with Yawaraka (Soft) Atomu, a character unveiled at the first Japan Animation Content Meeting, or JAM, last October.
Yawaraka Atomu now appears in an animated DVD series and on T-shirts.
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