Astro Boy

The collection begins with The Birth of Astro Boy, an episode that Tezuka wrote in 1975 to make the collection of stories easier to understand.

In April 1951, Atom, known as Astro Boy or just Astro in English, originally appeared as a supporting character in the Tezuka comic Atom Taishi (Ambassador Atom, sometimes referred to as Captain Atom), which appeared in Shonen, a monthly magazine for boys.

Tezuka then created a comic series in which Astro was the main character.

Schodt added that the page layouts used in Astro Boy episodes "became more creative." When designing supporting characters, Tezuka sometimes created characters that were homages to Walt Disney, the creator of Mickey Mouse and Disney Princesses, Max Fleischer, the producer of animated shorts featuring characters such as Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, and Superman, and other American animators.

In several of the Astro Boy stories, the first few pages were in color.

The manga was originally published by Akita Shoten in format; 23 volumes of paperbacks were printed.