Mighty Atom : Best Selection by Osamu Tezuka (Jitsugyono Nihon-sha)

Osamu Tezuka was a Japanese manga artist, movie producer, and animator. He was appointed President of Toei Company, Ltd. in 2020, one of Japan’s largest movie production companies. He held the position until his death from pulmonary artery thrombosis in 2023. 

He is the creator of Mighty Atom, Phoenix, Jungle Emperor Leo, Black Jack, and a number of other mangas. Many of them have been adapted into an anime series. Mighty Atom, known in the United States as Atom Boy is probably his most popular.

Mighty Atom : Best Selection is an English-Japanese bilingual edition and is a compilation of the manga’s best stories. Although the main comic is written in English, as with a typical Japanese manga, you read the book from the right to left and the panels all read from right to left and top to bottom. The English is written in the panels while the Japanese is written right outside of the panels. 

At the end of each episode, Japanese translations of words that may be a little difficult for beginners of English are provided (some upon request). The Japanese translation of the manga is exactly as it is in the original manga. At the end of the book, there is a section that features colloquial expressions in English which could be very useful in English conversation. 

Mighty Atom : Best Selection features eight popular episodes. The opening story is The Birth of Atom. Also included in this volume are Giant Uran, Atom’s First Love, Touch and Go for a Slippery Snake, Atom the Second, and The Story of Foolish Ivan. 

The Birth of Atom introduces us to Mighty Atom or Atom Boy. Atom Boy is a robot with human emotions. He was created by Doctor Tenma, the Director of the Science Ministry, to replace his son Tobio, who died in an automobile accident. At first the doctor seemed very happy to have his son back but he discovered a fatal flaw in his creation—as a robot, Tobio would never grow up. Tobio was eventually sold to a circus. Another scientist, Doctor Ochanomizu, realized the boy was no ordinary robot and took him away from the circus to become his guardian. 

Thanks to Doctor Ochanomizu, Tobio, the boy robot, “soars through the sky on jet boosters and becomes a rocket in space. He knows sixty languages and can sense the good and evil in others. He has super-human hearing and has sarchlights in his eyes. He has machine guns in his bottom, and is as strong as 100,000 horses. Thus, young Tobio is reborn…as MIGHTY ATOM!”. 

Darling Uran introduces the readers to Mighty Atom’s siblings, Cobalt and Uran. Cobalt is Mighty Atom’s younger brother and Uran is his younger sister. Mighty Atom decides to show his siblings around Tokyo but finds that their understanding of the human world is still a bit limited. He then takes his siblings to a robot tournament. He explains to them, “it’s a tournament where robots duel each other once a year””. After the three find seats to watch the tournament, the two boy robots realize Uran is missing. They spot her in the middle of the ring. People cannot believe she is a competitor but she defeats the reigning champion easily and becomes fond of taking part in the tournament which highly troubles Mighty Atom. 

Atom vs. Atlas pits Mighty Atom against another robot who was built to defeat Mighty Atom. Unfortunately for Atlas’s creators, Atlas befriends Mighty Atom and helps him to defeat evil in the world. 

As this publication is a compilation of some of the best episodes, the stories do not follow a linear pattern. The introduction of Cobalt and Uran was quite sudden as it was the second episode to be featured in this book. However, if you read each episode as a separate story, you can still enjoy Mighty Atom and his adventures. The stories are timeless and fun. They can be enjoyed by both adults and children alike. ~Ernie Hoyt