A third series of fifty episodes was produced by Tezuka Productions, Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan, Dentsu, and Fuji Television network. It was created to celebrate the birth date of Astro Boy, and was first broadcast in Japan on the same date as Astro's birth in the manga (April 7, 2003) across Animax and Fuji Television. It was directed by Kazuya Konaka and written by Chiaki J. Konaka, with additional writers including Keiichi Hasegawa, Sadayuki Murai, Ai Ohta, Hirotoshi Kobayashi, Kenji Konuta, and Marc Handler.