Doctor Tenma
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- This article is about the Astro Boy character. For the MONSTER character, see MONSTER. For Tenma, the School Rumble character, see School Rumble.
Dr. Tenma (天馬博士 Tenma-hakase), real name Taro Uma (馬太郎 Uma Tarō) (also known as Dr. Nagamiya Tenma, Dr. Boynton, and Dr. Balthus) is the father/creator of Astro Boy in the manga and anime by Osamu Tezuka.
Tezuka described Tenma in the manga volume 7 as:
"Dr. Tenma: born into a long line of horseradish farmers, in the particularly unlucky year of the horse, in Gunma ("horse herd") prefecture. Real name is Taro Uma ("horse"). Graduated from the university of Nerima ("walking horse"), and though a complete dark horse, through an amazing demonstration of intellectual horsepower rose to be the head of the ministry of science -- in an area of Tokyo known as Takadanobaba, which loosely translates into a "high pasture for horses". Among those wishing to unseat him, he is known as a real horse of a different color."
Dr. Tenma (which literally means "Heaven-horse" in Japanese) was a renowned roboticist and the Minister of Science. When his son Tobio died in a car accident, he decided to recreate him as an invincible robot. After living happily for a while with the child automaton, Tenma realized that an artificial android could not replace his son (particularly when he found out he didn't grow like a normal child) and so kicked him away; he sold him to Hamegg, a robot salesman, and he eventually ended performing in a circus where he was found and adopted by Professor Ochanomizu, who turned him into Astro Boy.
Tenma returned several times into Astro Boy adventures. He realized that Astro was fantastic and even though his affection towards him began to return, he knew he couldn't really make amends for his behaviour. Still, he helped him as much as he could:
- he built robotic parents for Astro (Only after the time-trival crisis. Originally, they were built in a factory.)
- he enhanced Astro's power to a million when he fought Pluto
- he rescued him disguised as a large-hat-wearing-man when he was prisoner of a Cleopatra robot.
Tenma's original behaviour towards Astro was considered quite brutal and inhumane even for Tezuka himself, so in a newer manga edition where Astro's history restarted after his time-travel crisis (with much more detail on his education and his visit to USA with issei Taba-Koh to witness discrimination on robots by racist people), the reader learns out that Tenma acted so harshly partly because he was drunk. Still, he then deliberately sells Astro to Hamegg, who is this time a cruel circus ringmaster who abuses his robot performers. Professor Ochanomizu (where he is this time Tenma's arch-rival in science) has a lot of trouble to get the boy robot from him.
In the 1980 cartoon series, Tenma does not really reject Astro: he dismisses him for causing a mess on a boat dinner after reminding him he was a robot. Astro then gets kidnapped by corrupted circus ringmaster Hamegg while Tenma tries to find Astro back. The circus is not as harsh and Hamegg not too evil (compared to the original version), but Professor Ochanomizu, with his assistant Chiyoko, noticing Astro Boy, has to trick Hamegg to get Astro with him.
In the 2003 series, Tenma takes the role of the main antagonist and abandons both Astro and the Ministry in a fit of insanity and begins to believe that Astro will be a "Jesus" figure from whom Robots will gain their standing with Humans, believing that as their equals or their masters (this slowly becomes the latter during the series). Prior to Astro's first battle with Atlas, he constantly refers to Astro as "Tobio" (the dead son he was supposed to replace) and only recognises him as a separate entity once Astro himself corrects him.
It soon becomes apparent to Tenma that he himself cannot keep up with Astro due to his being Human and as a result, creates a robot to spearhead Astro's development; this robot is appropriately named "Shadow," and is eventually revealed to be a robot double of Tenma himself.
