Alabaster
James Block, a handsome, famous and successful black athlete, looses everything when a failed romance releases the homicidal fury pent up inside. In prison he encounters the mysterious Doctor F., who has invented a ray which can make things invisible. Upon his release, James finds the lab and attempts to make himself invisible, a useful tool for criminal enterprise, but the ray malfunctions, causing him torturous pain and rendering only parts of him invisible, so he now appears as a hideous, vein-striped monster. Instilled by a hatred of all things beautiful, James renames himself Alabaster and sets out to found a criminal gang bent on destroying the beauty of the world. Dr. F’s invisibility ray can turn anything invisible, but the process is lethal to living things, so Alabaster uses it as a weapon, leaving invisible corpses and hideous half-invisible survivors in his wake. He forces a number of others to aid him in his criminal enterprise, including Ami, granddaughter of Dr. F, who, due to her grandfather’s experimentation, was born invisible.
A more detailed plot synopsis follows the analysis.
The serialization of Alabaster in Weekly Shounen Champion from December 1970 to June 1971 sparked more controversy than just about any of Tezuka’s other works, and an unusual sort of controversy too. While Black Jack and other social commentaries often elicited criticism from the medical establishment or other organizations, Alabaster triggered a great volume of angry letters from Tezuka’s diehard fans who were shocked to read a story so filled with evil and devoid of heroes. If in Vampires Tezuka had begun his exploration of the appeal and charisma of evil, here he seemed almost to have abandoned the optimistic world of Astro Boy and the other guardians of virtue which fans had relied upon to challenge and overthrow that evil.
Here virtue is not to be found in the innocent young lovers of the story, as we might expect. Ami, who begins as a virtuous girl, is led to crime when Genya (her potential sweetheart) persuades her to aid in a jewelry heist to secure money to help his ailing family. He is caught, and Alabaster assists her in organizing a jailbreak, but afterwards the comparatively-innocent couple, as well as a selection of other petty young thugs caught up in the jailbreak, are forced to aid Alabaster, and Ami is forced to become his mistress, and eventually a vicious murderess. Genya tries to prevent Alabaster from corrupting Ami too much but is too far under Alabaster’s control himself to put up much resistance. Meanwhile Ami’s brother Kanihei, the one truly virtuous character who remains throughout the story, makes only occasional appearances trying to save his sister, but he no warrior, and can do little more than witness with his eyes and camera the destruction of all Alabaster touches.
Similarly, virtue is not found in the law. Absent are our usual detectives and policemen, Geta, Tawashi, Shunsaku Ban, even Kenichi, who might have brought the criminals to justice. Instead the forces of law are represented by Rock, not the comparatively innocent boy detective version, but as an FBI agent every bit as sinister and self-serving as Vampires' Makube Rokuro. Similarly absent are Tezuka's usual self-serving thugs, Lamp, Skunk, Ham Egg etc. Instead Alabaster is a truly cruel criminal, not working for personal gain but to harm others, while those under him are as much prisoners as helpers. Alabaster is the worst kind of criminal, FBI the worst kind of false hero.
Many of Tezuka’s readers found FBI far worse than Makube, largely because he is so much more sexual. While Makube was a villain and murderer, and assumed female disguises when necessary for his plans, he was always ambitious more than anything else. When FBI removes his sunglasses, his face is strikingly effeminate, as is his body language both in male and female guise. The first issue in which he appears concludes as he strips naked and examines himself narcissistically in a mirror, delighting in the physical beauty which is the epitome of what Alabaster hates. FBI also added rape to Rock’s list of sins for the first time, as he steals Alabaster’s power literally by conquering the body of his female partner first, turning second to the defeat of Alabaster’s technology. FBI in Alabaster is cleraly identifiable as a transitional figure between the Makube of Vampires and the infamous Yuki from MW. Yuki, FBI's successor, is the most vicious, sadistic, and sexual character Tezuka ever wrote, though also more sympathetic than FBI, since Tezuka had in the intervening decade had the time and practice dealing with evil necessary to paint an in-depth and human portrait of the psyche of a monster.
From a science-fiction perspective, the most innovative part of the book is Tezuka’s very imaginative treatment of the use and abuse of invisibility. The theft and combat potential of an invisible girl are no new concept, but Alabaster experiments with the effects of the “F-ray” on flesh in many other ways, capitalizing on the beam’s capacity to leave partially-invisible victims. Delighting in ugliness and the destruction of beauty, Alabaster creates semi-invisible monsters, terrorizes the country by leaving hideous headless corpses and jabbering faceless survivors, and strikes terror into all with deathly armies of skeletal horses and birds heralding his deadly plans.
MORE DETAILED PLOT SUMMARY:
Since Alabaster is not likely to be licensed for US or European release any time soon, a full plot summary is provided here. It will be removed if the manga comes out in English. Note that this summary was made from an inferior quality translation and may contain some errors and omissions:
VOLUME ONE (of the three volume collection):
A sinister cloaked figure approaches a man on a rural beach and takes him hostage, forcing him to bring him to his home. Holding his victim at home, he explains that he was once the famous athlete James Block, but was rejected by his girlfriend, Susan Ross, and in a fit of rage ran down some interlopers with his car. In prison he was told the secret of the invisibility ray, the F Ray, by its creator, and tried it on himself, only to become hideously deformed. He has now come to this house, he explains, to take revenge on Susan Ross who rejected him. At the end of his story she returns home, since this is her house, and Alabaster destroys her face with the F-ray, then turns her whole head invisible, killing her, and finally makes her whole corpse invisible so it will never be found. The police arrive, but he defeats them using an ability gained due to his strange accidents and training in prison which allows him to flick a small object from his fingers with the speed and accuracy of a bullet.
Alabaster contacts Prosecutor Ozawa, the daughter of the professor who invented the F-ray. She has been raising her ordinary son Kanihei and her invisible daughter Ami, painting Ami skin-colored to let her have a normal life. Alabaster waits until Ami has become a young woman, and watches her. A wild young man, Yamagata Genya, approaches Ami to ask for her help in a jewelry heist to get money for his family. Alabaster watches, and the affair goes well, but Genya is caught on film, and brought to trial, with Prosecutor Ozawa presiding. Invisible Ami tries to disrupt the trial, and her mother recognizes it but can do nothing.
Ami flees the trial and is picked up by Alabaster, who arranges for her to help spring Genya from prison, along with a number of other young thugs who were jailed with him. None of the youths realize until it is too late that they are now in Alabaster’s thrall, since they cannot return to normal society without being thrown back in prison, and his deadly flicking ability makes him an irresistible master. Alabaster treats Ami like a queen because her invisibility appeals to his twisted sense of beauty. The others he treats almost as slaves.
VOLUME TWO (of the three volume collection):
Still working for Alabaster, Genya is frustrated by his continuing affection for Ami, which he dares not express. Alabaster has the gang pull of jewelry heists, using the F-ray to leave hideous bodies behind. He tries to get Ami to shoot some of the victims, but she is horrified by the idea of murder, and briefly flees.
She and Genya, attempting to get along with normal society for one night at least, are approached by the sinister figure of Rock, a corrupt FBI agent, though he does not address them at this time. The fiercely narsisistic Rock goes home to admire his perfect, effeminate body in a mirror. Meanwihle Genya, realizing somewhat who he is, crank calls him and teases him.
Alabaster’s gang pulls a heist at a jewelry modeling show, stealing the gems and kidnapping the beautiful models so Alabaster can destroy them. They take the models to their hideout, when one, laughing, reveals that she is really Rock in disguise, and that his men now have them surrounded. Ami attacks him and manages to allow the others to escape, but Rock captures her, rapes her, then, laughing, paints her with hideous stripes in an indelible paint she cannot get off. She escapes, crying, but cannot hide or cope with being stuck in this hideous visible form, and is almost drowned fleeing the police, but Alabaster saves her and cleans her off so she can be invisible again.
Ami’s horrible experience leaves her furous and wrathful, and she takes out her anger on the models Alabaster has captured, slaughtering and maiming them with the invisibility gun. When Genya tries to stop her, she threatens to kill even him, and at this point becomes for the first time content with her role as Alabaster’s mistress.
Ami’s brother Kanihei has been tracking her all this time, and finally manages to reach Alabaster’s island fortress. He has no way to hide, and Alabaster takes him prisoner, taking him on a tour of his experimental lab where he has used the invisibility ray to turn animals into invisible monstrosities: baboons with visible brains and eyeballs, a neck-less stag that is nothing but antlers and organs, a snake which seems to be only slices of itself, an elephant with only a head and hind legs. Kanihei tries to get Ami to escape with him, but she evades him invisibly, choosing to remain with Alabaster.
Though still somewhat under Alabaster’s thrall Kanihei is briefly allowed return to the world with news of Alabaster’s sinister abilities. He encounters Rock but cannot work with the vicious man who is so smug about having raped his sister.
VOLUME THREE:
Alabaster has done his worst. The nation lives in terror as horrific herds of skeletal horses stampede through the countryside, with the semi-visible Ami riding like a queen of death at their head. Alabaster’s gang raids houses at random, leaving hunks of semi-visible corpses and stammering survivors who are reduced to hideous monsters with their brains and eyeballs visible through transparent faces. Whole towns are left as massacred wrecks of corpses as hideous as Alabaster himself.
Rock, in an airplane, grabs and harasses Ami. She escapes and then sneaks invisibly into his house where she attacks and defeats him, but he has her brother hostage at the police station so she dares not kill him. She flees, taking out her wrath on other victims. Holding the nation hostage, Alabaster prepares for the next stage of his plan in which he will transform whole landscapes, not just beasts, into his hideous creations.
Kanihei and Rock both independently infiltrate Alabster’s fortress for the final confrontation. Rock captures Genya and Kanihei and ties them up, intending to kill them with the explosions he sets to destroy the fortress. They escape and track Rock, but he shoots Genya many times and shoots and wounds Ami. Kanihei manages to defeat Rock, smashing his beautiful face to pulp with a pipe so he becomes as hideous as Alabaster whom he pursued. Genya dies in Kanihei’s arms, sending him on to save Ami and defeat Alabaster.
Alabaster gets the drop on Kanihei and is about to kill him when Ami reveals she is with him. Alabaster is enraged by her betrayal and proposes to kill them both, but she knocks the gun from his hand and he is caught in its beam, killed as he finally becomes fully invisible. They know the fortress will shortly be destroyed by missiles, but the others arrange for Kanihei and Ami to escape in a hot air balloon. As they sail to safety, Kanihei speaks gently to his invisible sister, then hears her answer from over the side of the rail. He realizes her intent too late, and, unable to find her, is helpless to keep her from throwing herself to her death.
Note: the third volume story is not long enough to fill a full volume, so the collected version often has the unrelated short stories Goodbye Mali and Two-headed Snake at the end.