Zog is an archaic robot that Astro Boy helps bring back to life. He is one of Astro's biggest allies, literally. Zog is mostly known for appearing in the 2009 Astro Boy movie and its official comic adaptation.
A Robot named Zog also appears in the 1963 Anime series in the first episode.
Appearance[]
Zog is said to be a large, derelict construction bot with extreme brute strength and capacity, built 100 years before the events of the 2009 film but left on the surface. Compared to modern robots of his size, Zog is simplistic and primtive. His hull protects him from erosion to a certain degree.
Wrecked Zog
After being reactivated, Astro and Cora bring Zog to Hamegg. He immediately becomes part of Hamegg's robot arena, and Hamegg's adopted children help clean and redecorate Zog. He gets a proper polish, and is hand-painted with patterns and his new name.
Personality[]
Zog is an AI-enabled robot, but his personality is very limited. He has the ability to speak but does not do so often. Zog also has a strong distaste for humans, due to the treatment he received as a construction worker.
Zog lends Astro some of his energy
At one point, Zog rebels against Hamegg. He predates the Law of Robotics[1], is unbound by them, and is also aware himself.
In spite of his brutal edge, Zog is a strong ally to Astro Boy, as both are powered by the blue core's energy and therefore are relatively pacifistic. The two are pitted against each other at Hamegg's robot arena, but they refuse to fight. He later returns the favour by sparing some of his blue core capacity to revive Astro.
History[]
In the 1963 series Zog and Astro Boy are forced to fight while Astro Boy is enslaved at Hamegg’s circus, Astro Boy refuses to kill Zog.
Zog in the 1963 series.
Zog appears in Astro Boy movie, and was seen inactive. However, Tobio Tenma (who ran away from home from his father for shunning him and was shot to the surface) resurrected the rusty robot by inserting some of his Blue Core energy into his heart.
Zog begins spending time with Astro, Cora and the other kids. When Hamegg decides to take Zog into robot wrestling, the former orders the latter to fight Astro. However, both Zog and Astro are unwilling to fight each other. Zog instead grabs Astro and generously lifts him to the air as the others applaud him.
Furious, Hamegg electrocutes Astro and Zog and begins developing his hatred towards Astro for trying to humiliate him and attempts to shut him down, until Zog begins to attack. When Hamegg cowardly begs Zog for mercy, stating that the robots can't hurt or kill humans because it was 50 years ago, Zog coldly states: "I'm old school." Zog then steps on Hamegg, while the viewers (including Cora and the other kids) gasp in horror, believing Zog had killed Hamegg, but Astro stops Zog with brute force. Suddenly, President Stone arrives and arrests Astro. Zog attempts to prevent the soldiers from recapturing Astro, but the latter tells him to stand down.
Zog later tears open the roof of Hamegg's vehicle and abducts him, buying the remaining friends them time to find Astro in Metro City. In the end, Zog witnesses Astro's death, after he sacrificed himself to destroy the Peacekeeper. When Cora mourns his death and says that Astro was doing the right thing by helping people, Zog adds Astro helped him as well. When Dr. Elefun wonders how did Astro revived him, Zog reveals the involvement of the blue core. As a gratitude for resurrecting him, Zog spares some of his energy to restart Astro.
Trivia[]
In North America, McDonald's restaurants included a tie-in toy series with their children's meals. Zog was part of this series, and made into a small figure with limited articulation. Children who got him in a Happy Meal could decorate Zog with a sheet of stickers, featuring some of the graffiti Hamegg's children painted on him.
In more recent years, viewers have associated Zog's name with negative connotations. An American conspiracy theory claims a "Zionist Organized Government", or "Z.O.G.", made of Israeli politicians is running the United States of America. However, given that Imagi Studios was based in China, and Osamu Tezuka was openly against racism and bigotry for all his life, it is unlikely that Zog was meant to reference this.
Zog might be similar to the Iron Giant.