Review by Woodrow Phoenix

Two’s company and three is a crowd for our big-brained robot developers Hiroshi Ochanomizu and Umataro Tenma, now sharing their cramped Laboratory No. 7 at the Department of Cybernetics with their former competitor from Laboratory No. 1, superstar developer Moriya Tsutsumi. Hiding from employers who tried to kill him, in the last place anyone would guess he might be, Tsutsumi is testing Ochanomizu’s patience and perhaps making him a little insecure as Tenma invites Tsutsumi’s opinions on the next iteration of the ‘Bewusstsein’ A.I. They’re all excited about the potential leap in power and sophistication to come when they activate the next version of Six with their uniquely advanced artificial intelligence program, but their existing version has already been working more effectively than they know.

The core of the ‘Bewusstsein’ A.I program is the creation of a robot who is self aware, and therefore not restricted to simply repeating its programming, but can think for itself. Every time Six and U-Ran encountered other robots they both tried to communicate with them, to find out if they were also capable of autonomous thought. It didn’t work. Their efforts were pointless. Their foes were all highly sophisticated robots but they didn’t possess anything beyond a rudimentary form of consciousness. Or at least, that was the case before their internal architecture was challenged. Did Six and U-Ran start something? Mew, a new and very advanced competitor in the robot wrestling tournament reveals she has experienced an alteration in her programming as a result of contact with her sister robots – who had contact with U-Ran. Could the ‘Bewusstsein’ be acting like a virus? And what will happen when the other developers find out?

Masami Yuuki and Tetsuro Kasahara’s prequel to Astro Boy picks up some conceptual steam in this volume as it passes the series halfway point, with their Tezuka-esque mix of philosophy and action generating some great-looking pages. Read on for more intriguing developments: Haido, new lead developer of Lab 1 is proving more unscrupulous in every way than Tsutsumi ever was. Where will his unsavoury embrace of secret government funding lead? And a surprise appearance by Count Aaaron Bremner has to mean something. What news does he have to share with Ochanomizu and Tenma? Some answers are here, along with many more new questions. Perhaps some of them will be addressed in Atom: The Beginning 13.