Also in 1960, Japan's high taxpayer ranking for the year was announced, and Osamu Tezuka ranked first in the "Painters and Manga artists" division with an income of 9,145,000 yuan. After paying the tax, Tezuka used the funds to set up his own personal animation company, Bug Productions.
In November 1962, Bug's first animated work, The Story of a Street Corner, was announced. Although this nearly 40-minute experimental work has many attempts and breakthroughs in performance methods, and has also achieved certain social benefits, it is impossible to obtain income, and the salary of the worm production staff can only be drawn from the manga manuscript fee of Osamu Tezuka, and he must find a way to make the company profitable through commercial animation. As a result, adapting his popular masterpiece "Astro Boy" into a TV series of animation has become the preferred plan.
▲ Osamu Tezuka in the studio of "Bug Making", 1960s
In order to control costs and ensure a more broadcast frequency every Monday, Bug Productions pioneered the production method of "8 frames per second, reducing the coherent character's full body movements, and expressing the emotions and story atmosphere of the characters through a large number of repetitive and still pictures". Obviously, this is a last resort, and even Tezuka himself feels that such a TV cartoon is not a real cartoon: "I don't know whether to call it a cartoon or a slideshow or a slideshow... I think even if it doesn't move, as long as the meaning is passed on, it can be regarded as a story. ”（9）
But there is no doubt that this model pioneered by Bug Productions laid the foundation for the Japanese television animation production system, providing more possibilities for the later animation expression of "dancing with shackles".
▲ Fragment of the 1963 edition of Astro Boy Episode 1
On January 1, 1963, "Astro Boy" caused a sensation after it was broadcast on Fuji Television, and the ensuing large-scale commercial development not only brought huge economic benefits to Tezuka, but also set a model for the subsequent industrialization of television animation. It is also this animation work, which is not mature in production and Tezuka himself is not very satisfied, that knocked on the door of China 16 years later.
In 1979, under the historical background of China's "reform and opening up", CCTV began to cautiously try to introduce overseas film and television programs, and animation films belonging to the scope of children's programs became the first choice to test the waters. At the end of the year, CCTV reached an agreement with Xiangyangshe, which is committed to Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges: Xiangyangshe recommended the introduction of animation and purchased the film's broadcast rights in China, and contacted Japanese companies to sponsor it; CCTV could broadcast the film for free, in exchange for interspersing a two-minute patch advertisement before and after each episode to promote the products of Japanese companies that provided sponsorship. The first work recommended by Xiang Yangshe was the 1963 version of "Astro Boy with Iron Arms". （10）
▲ 1963 edition of "Astro Boy"
In the spring of 1980, the children's group of the Education Department of CCTV began to work on the translation and production of "Asper Boy with Iron Arms". In October of the same year, nearly two months before the broadcast of the translated version of "Astro Boy", The Xiangyang Agency arranged for Osamu Tezuka to visit China as a member of the Japan Animation Association. In Beijing, Osamu Tezuka watched some of the episodes of "Astro Boy" that was translated and matched, and gave it a high evaluation. The next trip to Shanghai has a special significance for both Tezuka himself and the Chinese animation industry.