From magazines to films to idol groups to small white cats, rock band KISS has a significant history of collaborations in Japan. This time the band is teaming up with a small metal boy: Tetsuwan Atom, or as he is known in the English-speaking world, Astro Boy.
The U.S. band is holding “KISS Expo Tokyo 2016~Jigoku no Hakurankai~” (KISS Expo Tokyo 2016: Hell’s Exhibition) at Tokyo’s Laforet Museum Harajuku from October 13 to October 31. This is the first time Osamu Tezuka‘s Astro Boy manga and anime is collaborating with a foreign rock band.
Apparently KISS member Gene Simmons is a huge Astro Boy fan. Simmons said, “Astro Boy brings back fond memories of my childhood. I remember jumping up from the couch and imagining I was Astro Boy – fighting dastardly villains, flying through the skies…the little robot boy who defended all of us from evil.”