“Osamu Tezuka is imprisoned in an Ivory Tower. (In America.)
People love to discuss Tezuka. They love to talk about how important he is. And yet if you wanted an easily accessible path to enjoying Tezuka's works ... that'd be a bit of a stretch.
They publish books about his life, hold museum exhibits in his honor, raise him on an academic pedestal—everything except actually putting out his manga. You can have three Narutos a month, but trying to get a single volume of Phoenix is like pulling teeth. Astro Boy flickers in and out of existence on store shelves. Even an easily licensable short series like Princess Knight is relegated to "very special episode" status in one issue of one magazine. How is it that the most dependable producer of Tezuka's work (in America) is a boutique literary publisher that's targeted way above the heads of the kids who SHOULD be reading his stuff?
I don't know who decided to shut Osamu Tezuka in the Ivory Tower, but someone ought to let him out.” -Carlos Santos
The glorious 49’ers. Tezuka. Go Nagai, Kazuo Umezu, Yoshihiro Tatsumi….it’s true that the literati of the manga world love to pay lip service to the topshelf creators, but it’s an uphill battle to actually get a hold of many of their works. As fun and easy as it would be to play the blame game with publishers and critics alike, there’s another fact about these creators that’s simply undeniable.
A lot of their stuff is really intellectually niche-y.
Granted, Princess Knight, Pheonix, Kimba- these are classics, why aren’t they making it to the masses? Well, for one, they’re a bit aged, and second, as thrilled as manga commentators would be to get their hands on a copy, manga remains a mass market industry aimed largely at preteens and teens. So yes, Viz could gamble a bit and license Princess Knight….or they could go instead for that new LaLa series that’s already performing pretty well in Japan, maybe even tie in to the new anime coming out this year, merchandising, perhaps… There’s what’s interesting, and then there’s what’s easy- and in this case, profitable as well- for publishers. Ode to Kirihito, while well liked by critics and touted even by Barnes and Noble, didn’t exactly burn up the Bookscan charts. Critics realize that these works are influential, and love to talk about them with a hint of precocious glee- but do the 14 year old boys and girls in the manga aisle give a damn? Probably not. They’re just looking for the next volume of Kingdom Hearts.
6 comments:
Tezuka does fill a role for the manga intelligentsia, and while it's a little shallow and pretentious, I'm not sure it should be otherwise. Tezuka's position in the manga pantheon is secure, and he should only be required reading for those who are really interested in the devlopment of manga's visual idioms and storytelling style.
You're right that most of the teen/pre-teen audience is more interested in Naruto or Full Metal Alchemist, but I guess I don't see what's wrong with that.
I think my biggest beef is that series that were intended for a wider audience by Tezuka get shelved away in the back corner by American publishers, under this bizarre sort of "Tezuka - old school pretentious" label, thus making it much harder to actually ever get them to people who, shockingly, might enjoy them on a completely normal level. He's got his place in the pantheon, for sure, but he also has [had?] mass market appeal at one point.
I have to disagree with you there Mangaijin. Whilst its fair to say that some of his work does have a kind of awkward tenor due to its preoccupation with 'higher' concepts or philosophical ideas, when he gets it right, his best works stand alone as exhilarating, emotional and intelligent comics in their own right.
Having just read Apollo's Song (which id rank among his best stuff), Im reminded why his work is so groundbreaking in many ways - there simply has never been another graphic storyteller with his abilty to express grand concepts in a compassionate and comprehendable manner, whilst still retaining the kind of excitement and drama that sucks you into the story...
I'm in no way denying Tezuka's talent or vision, I just don't think there should be "required reading" manga. Tezuka's work is beautiful, but it looks dated and I just don't think it has appeal for the teen audience because it doesn't immediately "read" as manga.
Of course there should be "required reading" manga, just as Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns are required reading in western comics.
It doesn't matter if it looks dated. Shakespeare doesn't read much like modern English, does that mean we should keep it away from the fragile minds of students in high school?
-Michael Aronson, Manga Life
I think Tezukas work (at its best) typifies the qualities that distinguish manga from other comics. It may not contain all the obvious stylistic signifiers of todays manga, but the most important thing of all - that rapid cinematic narrative flow, (albiet in a stripped down form), is at its core.
In that respect I cant think of anything that reads more like manga than Tezuka - if you pay more attention to the dynamics of the storytelling rather than the more superficial elements.
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