Osamu Tezuka

[LumRanmaYasha]

The next Kickstarter will be for Wonder 3. This is one that I've been interested in reading for a while now, so I'm pretty pleased to see it up next.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Forgot to mention this earlier, but the kickstarter for Wonder 3 is now up! It's already reached about a third of it's goal with almost a month of time left, which is a very good sign.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Stone Bridge has licensed The Osamu Tezuka Story manga, a 900 page chronicle of the man's life and career, and consequently, the evolution and history of anime and manga in Japan. Definitely going to be a Day-1 purchase for me when it comes out.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I just bought Astro Boy Omnibus 1 today. It's about damn time that I found this gem on store shelves. My only gripe is that Dark Horse still decided to give us the flipped artwork rather than reverting back to the traditional format for this release, but it's something that I can get over.

Now just put the rest of the series in Omnibus format on store shelves, Dark Horse, and I'll be good.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I read through the first half of the Omnibus today.

Of the stories presented so far, I particularly enjoyed His Highness Deadcross. It's a great example of how you can tell a story that's appropriate for young-children, yet cleverly disguise an adult theme in it that they may pick up on when they are a little older.

I also love how each story is accompanied with an intro by Tezuka himself, explaining a bit about what he was trying to accomplish with the story, as well as cleverly addressing unwarranted criticisms about it being too violent or whatnot.

And although Tezuka himself was dissatisfied with the uneven quality of his work, I always personally find his art-style to be thoroughly charming, and even his weaker stories still have a strong sense of heart to them, IMO.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I really love Tezuka's intros in AB as well. It's really interesting to see what he was thinking about when he came up with certain stories, and how he felt about them after the fact.

Deadcross is a good one, though my favorite story between the first two volumes is probably The Hot Dog Corps. I still need to pick up the first omnibus. Hopefully Rightstuf does a Dark Horse sale sometime, and I can preorder the second omnibus along with it.

On the subject of Tezuka manga, the Wonder 3 kickstarter has less than three days left but still needs about $15,000 more in order to get funded. If anyone here can contribute, it'd be mighty appreciated.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Unfortunately, the Wonder 3 kickstarter did not meet it's goal. This bums me out, but I think people have just been burned out on these kickstarters. I mean, I still haven't received the books from the last two. The pace of these has just been too fast and too much for most people to keep up and support. Apparently they'll be taking a break on these until Spring, and I think that'll do everyone some good. But I also think they shouldn't try to go for over $40,000 as a goal, or spring for hardcovers unless as a stretch goal. That's just pushing it too far, and just not feasible. Even if the pace will have to be slower, more will get funded if the costs for these are kept low and to the point, and each kickstarter is spaced out to allow just a little more breathing room for backers.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Having read "The Greatest Robot on Earth" a few days ago, I can certainly see why it's such a critically praised story-line and how it inspired many future mangaka, including Naoki Urasawa, who later went on to adapt the story into a sci-fi murder-mystery noir (which I've been inspired to re-read for the first time in over six years).

I understand that it's not necessarily the best story-line in the entire series, but I do see why it's so iconic. I love morally conflicted villains like Pluto, and the overall smart commentary on society in Tezuka's work in a way that's age-appropriate for kids without talking down to them, and while still being great reading material for adults of any age.

My only real criticism (and it's a mere nitpick, at most), is the way in which Pluto defeated Epsilon with a cheap shot while he was defenseless, trying to protect a kid. It both felt wildly out of character for Pluto (given his honor-code for fighting), and also ignored an earlier scene in which he thanked Epsilon for saving him and said that he wouldn't forget it (which similarly happened with Astro earlier on, causing Pluto to spare his life once in return). And yes, Epsilon caused Pluto to sink in the first place, but Pluto never knew that. So, to see him win their battle in the way that he did just didn't feel right. That said, it's really only a minor blemish on a superb, classic story-arc.

Having said all of that, one thing that I was kind of perplexed about was how Astro was apparently on good-terms with Dr. Tenma in this story-line. I understand that the stories in these publication releases are not presented in chronological order by year of release, but I do find it odd that the introduction story "The Birth of Astro Boy" shows Dr. Tenma rather harshly disowning Astro, and then being shown to have a much more affectionate relation with him later in the volume without any interactions with them featured in-between. I can't help but feel like I'm missing some context, here.

[LumRanmaYasha]

The story where Tenma and Astro Boy come to better terms is in a later volume, iirc. To be honest, Astro Boy's continuity is not dissimilar to american comic books, in that it has retcons and changes made to the origin story and character motivations every now and again. It doesn't help that the books don't have the stories in chronological order, either by year of release or the in-universe continuity, as opposed to Black Jack where at least supporting character introductions and appearances are kept in such. Like, both Uran and Cobalt's debut chapters are in later volumes, despite stories featuring them being shown long before. Also doesn't help that the AB books are also "best-of" collections, just like the BJ ones. It is how it is, but I do wish they had been better organized.

Glad to see you enjoyed "The Greatest Robot on Earth!"  I'm planning a re-read of it and Pluto sometime myself. In fact, I finally got around to buying the first omnibus recently, so after I give that a read through I'll probably hit those up right after.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm really interested to learn about how exactly this publication order was decided. According to an introduction piece by Frederik L. Schodt at the beginning of the omnibus, the order that the stories are presented in the Dark Horse publications are based on the Akita Shoten Sunday Comics imprint of the manga from Japan, which were decided by a collaboration between the publication editors and Tezuka himself, though I don't really know what their thought process was for how to re-chronicle these stories.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I assume they were chosen based partly on the popularity of certain stories, as well as the thematic or content cohesiveness between them. Either way, unless they ever publish a note from Tezuka or the editors who decided the order explaining why they chose to present and publish them the way they did, we'll never really know for sure.

[LumRanmaYasha]

DMP has a new Kickstarter up! This one is for Under the Air...and The Crater!!

That latter series is particularly noteworthy because of an...infamous Kickstarter campaign attempted by another party a couple years ago to publish the series, where the publisher pocketed the money from the campaign and never shipped the books, and to this day backers of that campaign have never received their copies. DMP has no association with that company, but the fact they have the license to The Crater now definitely lays any hope of that previous campaign ever being fulfilled to rest. It must be a bitter pill for backers of that old campaign to swallow, as they won't be able to get a copy of the book unless they back DMP's campaign, even if they are offering it at a discounted price than what the street price will be.

What's curious to me is that the Kickstarter isn't also to fund publishing The Crater, but it's available as an add-on. This would imply that DMP has already translated and produced the books, leading me to question whether the copies produced by that company from the Kickstarter years ago were really made, Tezuka Productions took possession of them when they were never shipped, and they were given to DMP in a new licensing deal. That would be an especially low blow to backers of the old campaign to essentially have to pay again for the very books that they already paid for in the first place. Whether or not that's the case, it makes me glad I never backed that campaign.

Luckily, the stigma of the old unfulfilled Crater kickstarter doesn't seem to be deterring fans from backing this project, since Tezuka fans know by this point that DMP is a reliable and trustworthy company that won't let them down in giving them a quality product. But The Crater is always going to be a contentious title in western Tezuka fandom because of the stigma and bitter memories of that old campaign and it's upsetting outcome. I'm definitely keen on seeing whether the book will be worth all the trouble it's taken to get it out over here.