Word: tezuka
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...horror genre. Three outstanding recent releases range in style from a twist on the teenagers-in-peril subgenre (Junji Ito's Museum of Terror) to extreme gross-out humor (Toru Yamazaki's Octopus Girl) to a disturbing medical thriller by Japan's most revered comix creator (Osamu Tezuka's Ode to Kirihito...
...those interested in a classier package and more novelistic read, Vertical, Inc., publisher of the Buddha series by revered manga author Osamu Tezuka (1928-1989), has just released his single volume Ode to Kirihito (825 pages; $25). Best known for his stories on themes of the power of love and karmic justice, here Tezuka has created a sophisticated medical horror story, with so much perversity that it may permanently change the master's American reputation as the Japanese Walt Disney. Though it retains Tezuka's core interest in the karmic consequences of immoral behavior, in this particular book he seems...
...Tezuka creates a devestating portrait of corrupting ambition as Kirihito's boss rises to power by exploiting victims of monmow disease. But the storyline that follows Kirihito's former colleague, Dr. Urabe, may be the most disturbing to Western audiences. While searching for the true cause of monmow disease Urabe struggles with his own predilections as a sexual predator. Ode to Kirihito has plenty of stunningly sadistic moments - including a giant snake consuming a baby for the pleasure of an audience - but the gratuitous scenes of rape, often followed by the victim's falling in love with the victimizer, will...
...This counterpoint of seriousness and play manifests itself most fundamentally in the artwork. The characters appear mostly in a silly "cartoon" style, with tropes like exaggerated brows, buckteeth and expressive eyes. (Tezuka defies expectations of what Japanese "manga" looks like.) These caricatures are then set against highly detailed backgrounds, with Tezuka often taking extra panels, or even entire two-page spreads, just to linger on the environments. He has such a mastery of the form that while providing every necessary panel to tell the story he has extra space just for breathing room. A temple sits stoically in the woods...
...Osamu Tezuka's "Phoenix: Karma" reaches near nirvanic heights. As entertaining as any comic can be, it miraculously also achieves what lesser religious comix strive for and fail at: enlightenment. Though it seems doubtful that readers will change their lives thanks to "Karma," they cannot avoid being touched by its deeply humane philosophy and egoless artistry...