"Astro Boy" became Tezuka's most famous work. Frederik L. Schodt, the translator of the English-language version of the manga, said it had "extraordinary longevity and appeal across cultures." Schodt said that many of the stories are "sometimes" of "uneven quality." Schodt said that as the time becomes closer to "a true age of robots," "Astro Boy" assumes more meaning. Jeff Yang of the "San Francisco Chronicle", in discussing Schodt's "The Astro Boy Essays", said "while kids came for Astro's atomic action – just about every installment included Astro harrowing a fellow robot who'd fallen from digital grace with his fission-powered fists – they stayed for the textured, surprisingly complex stories."