Forum - View topicDoing a short presentation on Tezuka--recommendations?
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MorwenLaicoriel
 Posts: 1617 Location: Colorado |
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Okay, so. Long story short, I'm taking a course in Graphic Novels as literature this semester, and as part of the class we're supposed to give an 8-10 minutes presentation. One of the options for it is to do an author study, so I thought doing my presentation on Osamu Tezuka would be good--we're basically covering just western comics/GNs in the class so Tezuka has only been briefly mentioned, and I figure if I ever want to be a serious reviewer of anime and manga (which I sorta hope to be, at least part-time) it'd be quite a shame if I didn't have a whole lot of knowledge about the guy who started it all.
I've only just realized today how daunting this task is. I knew he was prolific but I didn't realize how much, and I also underestimated how difficult it'd be to find work of his translated into English without spending too much money. (I'm a broke college student, unfortunately.) I've done some preliminary work looking into what's out there, and now I'm a little shellshocked. So far, I've found three books available through inter-library loan on Tezuka: The Astro Boy Essays (by Schodt), God of Comics (by Power), and The Art of Osamu Tezuka (by McCarthy). I think this is enough that I'm probably good on this route...hopefully, but I was planning on maybe using these books to give me an idea of what manga of his I should try to read to prepare for my presentation. Since I'm going to have to get them through interlibrary loan, that cuts the amount of time I can check them out, so I'm trying not to depend on them as much as I'd originally hoped...so I thought I'd ask you guys for some advice. So tl;dr -- What I'd really like to know is, if I can only read one or two series by Tezuka, which do I look into? What do you think is his best work, or most influential, or most representative? Since I don't know Japanese, I need stuff that's available in English somewhere--hopefully legally (since obviously I can't ask for scanlations here and I sorta doubt they'll exists for older series like his), and hopefully something that's been in print recently. I've noticed at least a few of his series available through the various libraries where I live--Phoenix and Black Jack come up a lot, and I think Buddha was available, too? At least a few volumes of those. Personally, from what I've read I'm guessing Phoenix is my best bet (particularly since each of the volumes seem to stand alone pretty well, so I can read them out of order if I have to). I'm not sure if that's a good assumption, though. Also, for your recommendations--as a safety net, if I can only read one or two volumes from each series, which should I focus on getting? I did some searches of the forums here--I think people said that volume 2 of Phoenix was particularly good? Hopefully this post isn't too long. ^^; Thanks for your help in advance, guys! Luckily I signed up to do my presentation in November, so if I get started now I should have plenty of time to research. I just don't want to procrastinate too much. |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7360 |
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You've come to the right place!
Ok, his most prolific work is probably Astro Boy and luckily you're talking to someone who has the entire series and has read the whole thing. Now, the thing about the Dark Horse editions is that since Tezuka had been shafted on getting the whole thing printed multiple times in the past, he decided to order that one by his favorite stories first (although they weren't personally my favorite stores in that order since I liked some of the later volumes more). One story that always gets a lot of attention from that series is The Strongest Robot in the World arc, which always gets animated and was the basis for Urasawa's Pluto manga. It is volume 3 of the Dark Horse manga editions. While we're on the topic, it would be more than worth it for you to track down a copy of Astro Boy: Omega Factor on GBA, it has tons of character cameos with brief bios on them, incorporates several storylines from the manga (volume 5 seems to have a few of them), has the greatest robots arc in some degree, and just celebrates all things Tezuka. As for other volumes to maybe look into, 19 and 20 have the ever important Blue Knight arc, which is probably when Astro Boy is at his darkest and essentially lets some humans die out of "not giving a damn". Volume 23 contains the info about why the stories are all out of order like I said above. Black Jack is probably his most popular work. I've read the first 7 volumes, just pick one, no one volume is really more important than the others it would seem. It makes great use of Tezuka's medical background, but Black Jack is both a hero and an anti-hero, working for huge fees and not entirely giving a damn what happens to his patients. But you can tell that he's really more kind and caring than that and that hospital politics really piss him off, making it comparable to hospital politics in Ode to Kirihito, he does repeat his themes a lot between his manga but always manages to put a different spin on them somehow, it's fascinating. Buddha is considered one of his great works too, but the main story doesn't really start until volume 2 (not that you can just skip 1, oh no! That introduces some of the important side characters). I'd plan to read 3 or more volumes if you're going to include this one. Now as for the Phoenix saga, I'd normally tell you to go get Karma volume 4, and if your inter-library loan really can you should since it's considered the best work of the series. If you have to buy them yourself, just forget about this volume due to its rarity. Instead, I would perhaps concentrate on volumes 1 and 2 Dawn and Future, the chronologically first and last in the series. Volume 9, Strange Beings and Life is probably the shortest printed volume with both a past and future story arc that I think demonstrates some of his ideas to love life very well so that would be the best to go for if you want a single volume. Phoenix is a good bet because you can read them in any order but keep in mind that volume 7 and 8 are one story and 10 and 11 are one story, the rest are independent of each other without being two parters. Volume 5, Resurrection, is my personal favorite and deals with his humans vs robots thing a lot. Actually, if you want to go for comparison between his works about his robots as second class citizens vs humans thing, look at Astro Boy (Blue Knight arc volume 19 is very good for that), Phoenix: Resurrection, and the Metropolis manga (although the movie has the message too, it's very different from the manga). Now, Vertical publishing has been a godsend, in addition to Black Jack and Buddha, they've also published at least 4 other series by Tezuka. First is Dororo, a 3 volume story about a guy who's father promised his body parts to 48 demons before he was even born for wealth and power and how Hyakkimaru goes about getting them back. The problem here is that this series was left unfinished, the only way to really "complete" the story is to play the PS2 game Blood Will Tell (it's pretty good, not Astro Boy: Omega Factor good and if you're only gonna play one game, make it Astro Boy GBA). The thing about Dororo is that Tezuka tried to make the main character Hyakkimaru's sidekick Dororo the main character since he's a kid but when Hyakkimaru proved too popular and was clearly the main, I think it's when he started to realize he had an audience that didn't necessarily want a kid to always be the main. Granted, the name stuck. Since Vertical gets licenses based on Ed Chavez's personal tastes, I'm fairly certain that he said Apollo's Song was his favorite Tezuka title that they've published so far (it's not really mine though). This one seems unusual for Tezuka if you ask me as it deals with themes of love and romance in which the main character is punished eternally to fall in love then lose his love in every era and time (and dream) he's ever in because his mother was such a whore that he never really learned love as a positive thing and killed two butterflies mating. I don't personally find romance to be one of Tezuka's stronger points, but alas, here it is. MW is either my favorite or second favorite Tezuka title depending on my mood. Now, talk about anti-hero! That defines Yuki to a T, a tragic event when he was younger and essentially raped by someone who became a priest in the future has really messed this guy up and now he murders people then impersonates the person he just killed, I think he does something odd and unspeakable with his dog, and now he forces the now priest to have sex with him while he womanizes and tries to destroy the world, I mean, sheesh! Tezuka has a way of making anti-heroes, his anti-heroes are not really born evil but become evil because of the world and horrible events that happened to them. Nextworld features common anti-hero and star system cast member (and my personal favorite Tezuka character) Rock goes through a subtle but not quite as psychotic change during that manga (2 volumes, Dark Horse) as well due to imprisonment with forced labor, he eventually goes from a care free happy go lucky kid selling newspaper to a "f*ck you" sorta guy. And lastly, Ode to Kirihito, which changes places as my favorite Tezuka title on and off with MW. Kirihito also explores the whole "second class citizen" thing and hospital politics on top of it. One way to get rid of your competition for disagreeing with your theory on a rare disease is to send them off to a village that is crazed and won't let you leave then make damn sure that bastard disagreeing with your incorrect theories gets it (which if anything makes your theory only more obviously wrong but screw that I'm in charge of this hospital!) Osanai Kirihito is the unlucky bastard and while he's off, his rather Yuki like friend rapes his fiancee under the guise that he wants to help Kirihito whom they haven't heard from for months because the person in charge of mail in the obscure little village burns anything from his fiancee. Ode to Kirihito and MW are definitely two of Tezuka's most adult titles where people are killed, raped, and tortured on a damn near regular basis, but one thing that sets Kirihito apart form MW are the underlying Christian themes of all things as we encounter a nun woman with the disease who is treated horribly and gets convinced to do a lot of rather unsavory things because God will give her strength. Kirihito might actually make an interesting contrast to both MW, adult in another way, and Astro Boy, which has similar themes of discrimination, manipulation, and how fighting or more violent scenes between the two series changed. The last Tezuka series I've read in English is Adolf which is about two boys named Adolf, one a Jew, one a Nazi's son, who currently live in Japan (of course) during WW2 and it's kinda a thriller of getting the information that Adolf Hitler is a Jew out to ruin his image. But man, reading this manga just makes you wanna punch someone and the two Adolfs start off as the best of friends and that changes, slowly at first, then faster to where they're fighting to kill each other every so often even in old age. It's absolutely heartbreaking and definitely looks at the dark side of humanity even more than most of his other manga that do the same damn thing (well, this one does involve WW2 Nazis). As for a compare or contrast, there's always real history for this one and this was definitely the manga that made humans look the most despicable even if it didn't compare to what the real Hitler actually did, it makes even his other depressing looks at the dark side of humanity look cheery by comparison. The important thing that I've always found true of Tezuka's "humans are evil" thing is that 1) it's still always entertaining and 2) to me it always comes off as "humans are capable of great evil" but isn't necessarily the default mode as I think others who try to the same thing wrongly portray it off as and the Blue Knight arc from Astro Boy is pretty good about Astro not being sure what to say when Blue Knight says this because he knows most people are good but aren't really into acting out to help people like Astro was built for. Also, I can tell you right now that my University library does have all of Adolf so assuming you live in the states, I'm pretty sure we do inter-library loan so you might very well be able to get this one. So yeah, that's my two cents on all the manga titles I've read by Tezuka that are available in English, hope this helps! And trust me, if you ever want to talk at length about any given Tezuka title that I've read via aim, I am there, just pm me for my aim! *edit Oh yeah and one more thing: A Drifting Life is manga about making manga by a guy who started around Tezuka's time an actually got to hang out with him! He mentions the influences of the great Tezuka from time to time, if you get a chance to flip through it to show off his influences, there ya go. |
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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classicalzawa has mentioned most of the Tezuka stuff available in English.
However, you should also be aware of Lost World and Metropolis (two of Tezuka's earliest book-length comics) and Swallowing The Earth (his first multiple-volume story specifically for adults). Oh, and Ayako should be out in October but that might be a bit too late to be of any help. It's difficult to know which of Tezuka's titles in particular we should recommend to you without knowing what aspect of his work you want to discuss. And I think you really are going to have to narrow it down because there are no two or three titles that reflect Tezuka's work as a whole. If you want his most iconic (and best selling) works I'd suggest Astro Boy and Black Jack but, as good as they are, those aren't necessarily his best or most inventive works. If you're looking for his most critically acclaimed stuff, Adolf is probably the most universally praised of his works available in English - but it's also the hardest to get hold of (or at least its first volume is) - closely followed by Phoenix. --- EDIT: You can see previews of Astro Boy, Lost World and Metropolis (but not Next World, for some reason) over at Dark Horse's site, Swallowing The Earth at DMP's site and Apollo's Song, Black Jack, MW and Ode To Kirihito (but not Buddha or Dororo) at Vertical's site. No Tezuka previews available from Viz as far as I can tell. |
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MorwenLaicoriel
Posts: 1617 Location: Colorado |
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Thanks for the responses so far guys, this'll give me a good start. And thanks especially for those links to those previews, Moomintroll! That'll be great, I'll be able to sample bits and pieces of some of his works, so even if I can't read them all I'll at least have a little exposure to them.
As for narrowing the focus...yeah, that's difficult, and I'm not really sure what angle to take on that. Two of the questions my teacher wanted us to consider as stated in the handout she gave us was what literary and/or historical influences are present in our author's works, and how he grew and changed as a creator throughout his career. I'll probably have to end up just giving a cliff notes version of that, considering I'll only have about 8 minutes or so in the speech. Phoenix might be a good bet, since he worked on it throughout his career, so it might show some evolution in both his writing and art style. And Adolf would certainly cover the historical references in his work...I could maybe try reading Phoenix, Adolf and Black Jack or Astro Boy (to cover one of his most popular works) and somehow give some brief examples from each of them...although that might be over-ambitious. |
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