Phoenix Vol 2 - hero fell in love with alien, which got him alienated.
Phoenix Vol 5 - hero fell in love with robot.
Phoenix Vol 6 - mother made love with sons and grandsons.
Phoenix Vol 8 - farmer/peasant fell in love with woman from the future.
Showing posts with label tezuka. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tezuka. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Tezuka once more
I read a lot of Tezuka (Atom Boy, Black Jack) when I was younger and then I read none at all. So I missed out when the more serious Tezuka stories came out in the late 1990s and 2000s - Phoenix, Buddha and Adolf.
I started reading Late Tezuka and now moving to those tomes I've missed. Phoenix is good and Buddha is one of the best things I've read. The amount of research Tezuka must have done into Buddha's life, teachings and philosophy, I wonder if Tezuka is a Buddhist himself.
Check out this image of a prince from Vol 8, the last volume. Reminds me of Little Orphan Annie. And also Starfire from the Teen Titans.
The breaking down barriers typical of Tezuka is also here.
Article on Buddha:
http://comics212.net/2010/01/06/manga-milestones-2000-2009-10-manga-that-changed-comics-5/
I started reading Late Tezuka and now moving to those tomes I've missed. Phoenix is good and Buddha is one of the best things I've read. The amount of research Tezuka must have done into Buddha's life, teachings and philosophy, I wonder if Tezuka is a Buddhist himself.
Check out this image of a prince from Vol 8, the last volume. Reminds me of Little Orphan Annie. And also Starfire from the Teen Titans.
The breaking down barriers typical of Tezuka is also here.
Article on Buddha:
http://comics212.net/2010/01/06/manga-milestones-2000-2009-10-manga-that-changed-comics-5/
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Tezuka - Phoenix
I wrote about Late Tezuka. Phoenix is not late Tezuka as he had been working on this since 1954. Never had the chance to read this and the only excerpts I read was in Frederik Schodt's Manga! Mnaga! The World of Japanese Comics. Viz brought out the whole series in English some years ago and I finally got to read some of the volumes.
I'm impressed. The early volumes were so so. But Vol 5 Resurrection struck a chord because it was Astro Boy in reverse. A young man who met an accident had an operation that save his life, which made him more machine than man. He requested the doctor to turn him completely into a robot because he had felt in love with one. If Astro Boy is Tezuka's take on Pinocchio, of a toy who wants to be a boy, then in Resurrection, we have a man who wants to be a machine because he is too much of a man for his iron maiden.
Robita in this story (who also appeared in Vol 2 Future) reminds me of another robot in an untranslated Tatsumi story.
Phoenix is considered Tezuka's best (and incomplete) series, so I did not associate it with Late Tezuka. But all the elements are there in Vol 6 Nostalgia. Incest, cannibalism. To perpetuate the bloodline, the mother mate with her son and later her grandchildren. The names of the children - Cain, Abel, Seth, Lot... so Tezuka was taking ideas from the old book.
The formal experimentation is also there. In Vol 8 Civil War Part 2, the short story at the end, Robe of Feathers is shown from one fixed angle - we are seeing what is enacted on onstage just as what is being observed from the audience seats.
A good write-up on Phoenix.
http://madinkbeard.com/archives/the-structure-of-tezukas-phoenix
I'm impressed. The early volumes were so so. But Vol 5 Resurrection struck a chord because it was Astro Boy in reverse. A young man who met an accident had an operation that save his life, which made him more machine than man. He requested the doctor to turn him completely into a robot because he had felt in love with one. If Astro Boy is Tezuka's take on Pinocchio, of a toy who wants to be a boy, then in Resurrection, we have a man who wants to be a machine because he is too much of a man for his iron maiden.
Robita in this story (who also appeared in Vol 2 Future) reminds me of another robot in an untranslated Tatsumi story.
Phoenix is considered Tezuka's best (and incomplete) series, so I did not associate it with Late Tezuka. But all the elements are there in Vol 6 Nostalgia. Incest, cannibalism. To perpetuate the bloodline, the mother mate with her son and later her grandchildren. The names of the children - Cain, Abel, Seth, Lot... so Tezuka was taking ideas from the old book.
The formal experimentation is also there. In Vol 8 Civil War Part 2, the short story at the end, Robe of Feathers is shown from one fixed angle - we are seeing what is enacted on onstage just as what is being observed from the audience seats.
A good write-up on Phoenix.
http://madinkbeard.com/archives/the-structure-of-tezukas-phoenix
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