Epsilon

Epsilon (known as Photar in the 1980's series English dub) is a recurrent character in Astro Boy who appears as a rival to Bruton. Epsilon is shown to be from Australia, alongside Hercules, who is Greek, Gerhardt, who is German and Molnar who is Scottish.

Epsilon appeared in volume 3 of the original manga, more specifically in the “The Greatest Robot on Earth” story arc. Here, he hails from Australia and was eventually defeated, like the others, except for Astro.

Photar caring for the children

In the 1980s series, known as Photar, the character has an androgynous personality and is once again a member of the World's Greatest Robots. He comes from “the Southern Continent” and acts as a carer for the kindergarten children. He was originally going to defeat Bruton, however, he decided to save a child who was about to get crushed under a tree, hence leaving him defenseless and was eventually defeated by Bruton.

It must be noted that Bruton chose a rainy day to fight, since this would leave Photar weak as he is a photon-powered robot.

He is shown to be Australian (referred to as the 'Southern Continent'). His location is shown to be near Uluru (Ayers Rock), possibly within the Alice Springs area.

Epsilon re-appeared in the 2003 series as a secondary protagonist. The character went through a major character redesign and is now portrayed as female, marking this as the first time Astro has a female robot as an ally. She was first introduced in the episodes The Rise of Pluto and The Fall of Acheron, where she is shown to be an environmentalist and protects Metro City's wildlife and greenery, even bravely stopping a tornado in its tracks. She is one of the robots Pluto challenges, and, during battle, heads in the water, where she has an advantage, instead of fighting on land where the advantage would be given to Pluto. She is there shown to be able to detect ocean currents. However, a pod of dolphins spoils her plan and as she, displaying her environmental concern, rushes to save them, Pluto senses her weakness and swims to a highly volcanic area - if Epsilon shoots and misses (which is a high probability), hundreds of marine creatures will be killed. She eventually deems this probability and does not shoot; therefore Pluto shoots her and renders her immobile. However, strangely, Pluto did not destroy her like he destroyed his other opponents.

Epsilon re-appears in the episode Escape from Volcano Island, where she is an nominee for the prestigious Robot of the Year Award (alongside Astro, Harley, as well as an unnamed robot nurse and unnamed robot computer hacker). However, the terrorist Kato as well as Mr. Drake ensures the cruise doesn't go as planned, when they wrecked havoc and allowed the ship to stray off course and allow a volcano to erupt. The robots hurriedly start to attempt to turn the ship back, Epsilon and Astro fly off to destroy some of the flying debris so it would not harm the ship. Their efforts are found to be futile, and to make matters worse the ship is going to crash on the island. Just in time, the ship is hacked into and turned around, meanwhile Astro uses his arm cannon to ensure the ship has a clear path. Eventually, all five robots receive the award because of their sheer bravery.

Epsilon would once again receive a prominent role, this time in the Robotonia episode Showdown in Robotonia. Reno and Hannah have stolen Yuko's car and are now attempting to contact Duke Red's forces but do not succeed, as the car is broken. Suddenly, enemy forces surround - and prepare to destroy - the car with them in it, as they are leagued with the robots. Epsilon appears from underneath the car and starts to get the car hovering, and they escape followed by the human forces. Epsilon predicts that the ice wall in front of them will collapse, so they hurriedly go under it and it does collapse, and the human forces lose them. Eventually, the message does go through and the humans realize their mistake, however unfortunately the war isn't over because the robots refuse to surrender.

Alongside various characters who have appeared throughout the series, Epsilon's final appearance was in Astro Reborn, amongst the group of character who were showing support for Astro when he was being rebuilt.

Being in 'The Greatest Robot in the World' story arc, the 2003 series Pluto episodes are merely re-makes of the 1980s series' episodes, which is in turn a re-make of the original manga's. For this reason, most of the robots Pluto fights are simply re-makes. For more information, refer to this table: