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Oct. 19th, 2003 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furtech
I guess one of the posthumous benefits of being famous and dying is that suddenly you're marketable again. Various Japanese publishers have been reprinting Osamu Tezuka's works, some in deluxe formats. One of those has been Tezuka's Phoenix (Hinotori) series. Considered to be his masterwork, I finf this series to be very uneven, storytelling-wise. Some stories left me cold while others I felt was some of his best work.
One of the gems in this collection occurs in volumes ten and eleven. I'm a bit confused as to exactly what is happening over the course of the two volumes, but the big plot seems to involve karma and re-incarnation and subtler cultural issues. The smaller stories under that umbrella are much easier to understand. Visually it will be easy to see why I like this series!
As you can see from these scenes from the two volumes, the story involves a footsoldier from Medieval Japan who after a large battle, is punished by the enemy commander by having a wolf's head grafted to his face. The story also has many creatures from Japanese folklore, including the Inari-foxes (kitsune). And then, about halfway through this, the story begins cutting between the medieval setting and a far futuristic setting. The medieval hero's re-incarnated soul is now that of a soldier in a facscist world where he ends up with a cybernetic wolf-shaped mask permanently attached to his head. There's a lot of Eastern philosophy here, set into motion by the Phoenix (who's all about karma and time).
And here are some links to more art (whole pages):
http://www.akela.com/IMAGES2/TEZUKA/wolf3sm.jpg
http://www.akela.com/IMAGES2/TEZUKA/wolf4sm.jpg
http://www.akela.com/IMAGES2/TEZUKA/wolf5sm.jpg
http://www.akela.com/IMAGES2/TEZUKA/wolf7sm.jpg
http://www.akela.com/IMAGES2/TEZUKA/wolf8sm.jpg
Enjoy!
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This is such an amazing coincidence!
Date: 2003-10-22 07:19 am (UTC)Another friend was just telling me about this series a few days ago..!!
I've seen the Hinotori movie (both the edited and unedited versions), but I was excited to hear about this...
Agreed, a lot of his stuff is uneven story wise, but it seems like a lot of Manga and Anime seem to go off in tangents, so I've come to accept it as a cultural difference, and mostly I let go and just enjoy it for the art :>
I'd love to have a peek at the books sometime if that's ok *wags*..
:>
Thanks for the imagery!