#also i havent even read this stuff recently so i may misremember stuff

[omegasmileyface]

ok im gonna put this in a seperate post so hopefully i can keep getting responses but I THINK, from what ive seen, that

a lot of people's perception of tenma's narrative purpose is fixed around him being a father. as in he's there to represent a failed, or imperfect, or distant father figure for atom. perhaps to contrast with ochanomizu.

(now bear in mind what im about to say is based off the 50s/60s and 80s series since those are the ones tezuka was directly involved with, and ive never seen the 60s anime or the japanese dub of the 80s anime. i have, however, read all of the original and 80s manga that are translated in the omnibus collection, and seen all of the 80s english dub that's available on tubi)

i personally always got the vibe that tezuka's intention with him had very little to do with him being a father. i mean obviously he is a father, and that's very important to the relationship he has to the creation of atom, but i think that part of his character- and most of his character to begin with- is pretty contained within origin story territory. he's an inciting character. (i saw a response on that post which said much the same thing btw!) if anything his fatherhood is important with respect to tobio. he makes atom, and raises him, because he wants to be a good father to tobio by "keeping him alive" after he died from his gift. (who the fuck gives a car to an 8 year old.) when he was treating atom as a kid, he had no intention of making himself into atom's father so much as making atom into his son. which, like, while it's a shitty thing for a father to do, it is a perfectly valid relationship for a character to have with fatherhood. I would say that at this point he's a (bad) father character. but by the time he sells atom to the circus, he doesn't care anymore. when he notices that atom isn't growing, he doesn't try to make him grow (presumably he'd be able to do that, or at least try! he did design the kid after all.) like a demanding, idealistic father, he instead just kicks him out and calls him a robot freak. he does NOT see atom as his son, not by this point. atom was not, to him, a bad son he was trying to turn into a son, he was a not-son he was trying to turn into a son, and he didn't pass the test. now he's just a freak. hoshie's atached, but tenma doesn't give a shit anymore. the robot he made didn't do its job, which was to masquerade as his son. now, for a while atom does see tenma as his father who abandoned him, but by the time ochanomizu rescues him from the circus, he's over it. tenma was just a period of his life, much like hamegg, and now he's moving on to a new one where he gets to go to school and hang out with funny old men.

it's worth mentioning the (english dub of the) 80s series (from what ive heard the japanese version is a little different? but i havent seen it yet) in which tenma does the same deal of trying to fit atom into being the perfect son, but when atom gets stolen (he's not sold in this one!) tenma is seen, deeply distressed and at least a little sorry, looking for him. but then, even when atom becomes sort of a public figure, tenma is never seen again. and atom doesn't mention him again (unless he does in the finale atlas episodes?? i dont remember that but it could have happened and i cANT CHECK BC THEY TOOK IT OFF TUBI AND I HAVE YET TO GET IT SOMEWHERE ELSE sobbing.)

but back to the manga, the vast majority of astro boy comics don't even mention tenma. they take place after, and do not call back to, his period of pretending atom was tobio. there are only a few comics where tenma makes a return (the blue knight saga, the greatest robot on earth, and that one with the bunny come to mind) and he generally says nothing about atom that implies he thinks of him as a son. barely even as a creation, really, mostly just some kid he knows. he tends to show up wearing sunglasses, when asked where he's been claimed to have denounced the world, offer some help (repairs, upgrades, etc) to atom and then leave. he might spy on him too but enh when asked, in the greatest robot, whether he wants to stay and meet uran and ochan, he denies the offer, insisting he still doesn't want a settled, public presence. he disappears back into the ether. atom sometimes shows signs of having missed him and being excited to see him again, but accepting how brief it is and the life he has now, kind of like you might get excited to see an uncle you don't hear from for a few years at a time.

the exception is the blue knight saga, in which he's treated way more as a villain than as a neutral backstory/cameo character. he's approached as "the one man who could repair atom from this... doctor tenma." and then he like tortures a guy to force him to use his time travel ability for his own gain (he also kills his future self i think. classic tenma move) and also, the main thing here, tries to take atom back and make him do evil for him. it backfires, and evil atom doesnt give a shit about tenma any more than he gives a shit about any other human (did... did tenma forget he's human?), but tenma's goal was control. i don't know if id call this a fatherhood plot. his main intention was, rather than treating atom as a son, to have atom under his power. again, while shitty parenting, not an invalid relationship for a character to have with fatherhood (cough cough vlad masters cough), but iirc it's sort of unclear whether his intention is to be a shitty father or to be the owner of a weapon. maybe both.

(the blue knight depiction of tenma is almost certainly the main inspiration for his role in the 2003 series. it perfectly reflects the "king of robots" plot, and his intention via shadow of having control over that king. the 03 series takes this version of tenma, where he's literally evil and wants atom under his thumb, and spreads it out so it's present throughout the whole series, rather than just this one plot out of many, and then adds an emotional angle of his relationship with tobio's death, and thus fatherhood, for the sake of adding complexity to his character)

and i think the 03 series and the way it uses this as a constant is the reason so many people see tenma's role as that of a (bad) father. in the 03 series he has SO MUCH more presence, and he absolutely is a father in that series. if you asked 03 atom about tenma he'd be like "tenma! my father! he's always trying to take me back in as his son but he doesn't realize that things have changed since tobio..." or whatever and if you asked 50s he'd be like "oh, my creator? he tried to raise me like his son once but that didn't work out. i see him from time to time but he seems to be up to his own stuff now." he's like morally-grey hamegg. like skunk but with a single failed adoption plot. (here's the tldr) and since so many current astro boy fans like the 2003 show as their main media, i can see why this concept would permeate down to the base idea of tenma in general. i fucking love the 2003 show! and i love what they did with tenma's character. but i feel like it's important to note that, with the exception of the blue knight arc, he is a wildly different character in that reboot than osamu tezuka wrote him to be. i feel like it's important to keep tezuka's message in mind, which from my understanding was a lot more personal/familial in his original work than in later reboots, and was more regarding the wider everyday trials and tribulations of trying to get organic and artificial life to get along.

ps id also like to mention the relationship between tenma and ochan. ochan also doesnt really care about tenma in the original works, and really only knows him as "that crazy minister before me who spent the whole budget on this good boy and then left him to rot". tenma only knows ochan as the guy who replaced him. i feel like a:tb's influence may have helped tenma feel more important (this time with regards to ochanomizu) than he might really be