Underrated Manga: Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix

[Angelcake the Fox]

In the history of world literature, many of the great authors had some sort of frame story or concept that was used to tie their vast literary enterprises together. Chaucer has his pilgrimage to Canterbury, Asimov has his Three Laws of Robotics......

......and Tezuka had his Phoenix.

The author truly needs no introduction. As the famed creator of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion, Osamu Tezuka is the single most celebrated and beloved mangaka of all time. With over 700 different titles, comprising over 170,000 pages, he is unmatched to this day, with the only other mangaka that even come close to him being Go Nagai (Devilman, Mazinger Z) and Shotaro Ishinomori (Kamen Rider, Cyborg 009).

However, it was this particular work that was the closest to Tezuka's heart. Although it is not his longest in terms of pages (that honor belongs to Black Jack), it is the one manga that he spent more time on then any other manga. He worked on it, off and on, for over 30 years. At the time of his tragic passing in 1989, it was STILL unfinished!

Now, for the story......

The Phoenix manga is quite complex, as -like The Canterbury Tales- it is made up of various, individual stories that are tied together by the eponymous Phoenix, which is a feminine, manevolent, crane-like avian entity whose blood grants eternal life. Some of the stories take place in Feudal Japan, whereas the others take place in the far future.

However, all of the stories revolve around one common theme......immortality.

The human instinct to cheat death.

Many could consider the Phoenix to be some sort of allegory.

Sadly, we'll never know. Tezuka passed on before he could complete this, his life's work. An ending was never created. So, sadly, we will always be left to wonder how it would have ended.

The manga, which at the time of Tezuka's death comprised of 12 volumes, are available from Viz media.

Please, if you ever get a chance to partake of Tezuka's masterpiece, do yourself a favor and read it. Tezuka, as we all know, was a master storyteller, who was able to come up with an engaging plot and cast of characters almost on a whim.

This is Tezuka's life's work.

It was also his best.

[hakucho]

I love Phoenix! I've only managed to get only one volume (3, I think) and I would like to get more: Tezuka really outdoes himself with the phoenix story in using the comics medium to press questions about humanity (ie cheating death, like you've mentioned) and its relationship with its surroundings (particularly nature or the controlling forces that be) which seem to often prove to be chaotic.

What's also great about Phoenix is how Tezuka wasn't afraid to employ different forms of story-telling, in that he'd either break up the "seamlessness" of the story with insightful comments from the characters themselves on the comic or he'd connect the panels together to show how different people are reacting to something at the exact same time.

[Bryan Stone]

I've not read Phionex but I totally agree about Osamu Tezuka! I do, however, have a few Astro books and Metropolis, one of his pre Astro works. I heard that there is a fine anime based on it but I have not seen it.

From purely a technical point of view all of his work is quite amazing... I've been wondering about something...Was Tezuka the first to put cartooned charachters in 'real life', non-humorous, dramatic situations in comics? As I was posting this I picked my copy of metropolis off the shelf and it says it was written in 1949.

I've studied comics art history and I understand that there is a ton of substantial work, Rudolphe Topffer, William Hogarth, Rowlandson, etc. etc. before that but I'm refering specifiaclly to cartooned charachters.

?????hmmmmm??????

[Angelcake the Fox]

I've not read Phionex but I totally agree about Osamu Tezuka! I do, however, have a few Astro books and Metropolis, one of his pre Astro works. I heard that there is a fine anime based on it but I have not seen it.

From purely a technical point of view all of his work is quite amazing... I've been wondering about something...Was Tezuka the first to put cartooned charachters in 'real life', non-humorous, dramatic situations in comics? As I was posting this I picked my copy of metropolis off the shelf and it says it was written in 1949.

I've studied comics art history and I understand that there is a ton of substantial work, Rudolphe Topffer, William Hogarth, Rowlandson, etc. etc. before that but I'm refering specifiaclly to cartooned charachters.

?????hmmmmm??????

Yes, there is an anime film based on Metropolis.

It was directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, the famous director of Akira.

However, it is only loosely based off of the original manga novel that it is based on. Its still quite good, though.

As for Tezuka being the first to put cartoon characters in serious, non-humorous situations.......well, it could be argued that way.

Osamu Tezuka was the creator of the 'story manga'. All manga beforehand were basically 4-panel comic strips that were somewhat similar to American comic strips. Tezuka himself started out in this area with his first published work, The Diary of Mi-Chan. Another famous manga comic strip that came beforehand is Sazae-san, which is basically the the Japanese equivalent of the Peanuts.

Basically, Osamu Tezuka created what we now know as 'the story manga'. He was also the inventor of the Graphic Novel, when his 2nd major success-Lost World- being the first.

So, yes. It can basically be argued that Tezuka was the first.

Oh, btw, if you want the earliest Tezuka manga available in English, I would suggest the aforementioned Lost World. Being the first GN, its a tad crude, but is still quite enthralling.

[Bryan Stone]

Hey thanks for the info!

The 4-panel comic strips that you mentioned...did they come before the Japanese version of Punch magazine, nicknamed Ponchi-e from the 1870s?...well, now that I think about it I guess this discussion could go all the way back to 1814 when Hokusai published his manga sketches and actually coined the term 'manga'...but those weren't really manga in the context in which we're speaking.

Thanks for the tip on Lost World , I'm gonna see if I can find that!

[Angelcake the Fox]

I believe they came after Ponchi-e. But then again, that's just a guess.

After Lost World, I'd also like to suggest another early work by Tezuka, called Nextworld.

Its basically a science-fantasy story that satirizes the Cold War.

Its also the final part in Tezuka's early trilogy of science fiction manga novels, the first two being Lost World and Metropolis.