Tezuka in English

Section one: Last Years

Rock had few appearances in Tezuka after Buddha and Black Jack. In Rainbow Parakeet "Twelve Angry Men," (1981) he cameos as the clever young son of a wealthy man who commits theft just for the thrill of it, and gets what he deserves. In Say Hello to Bookilla (1985) he plays a slapstick role (under the name Makube Rokuro) investigating a haunted TV station and being beaten to a pulp on numerous occasions. Neither of these parts has the intensity of Rock's earlier parts, as if after making peace with Buddha, Black Jack and Tezuka, Rock is allowed to retire, while Tezuka in turn concentrate on animation, and on new original characters for dark, realistic social commentaries like Adolf.

Rock appears in two late animated specials overseen by Tezuka. In the 1979 TV special Marine Express, is an original animated story, not based on any manga. It is a grand cross-over, cramming in as many notable characters as Tezuka could fit, including Rock, who here plays Astro's elder brother, son of Dr. Ochanomizu. Rock here is the steadfast pilot of the Marine Express, defender of his passengers, who, after being brought back in time through a time slip, is also the destined savior of the ancient kingdom of Mu, and, after marrying Queen Sapphire, its king. Here Rock helps Shunsaku Ban investigate Skunk's criminal enterprise, helps and teaches Astro, his brother now rather than his classmate, and rules a kingdom at Sapphire's side. He is also beaten up and taken prisoner as usual, and spars with Duke Red, who is, for once, not his father but his father's rival. But there is no dark Rock here, nor transformation – he is a hero. Nothing more complex can be expected from an original story created as charity special, whose goal is to satisfy as many Tezuka fans as possible by giving them their favorite versions of everyone.

Section one: DISTRUST

We have now seen Rock at his worst, and also Tezuka at his worst, in the late sixties and early seventies when repeated conflicts with editors and publishers and apparent betrayals by friends seriously hurt his production studio and interfered with the publication of many series, including Phoenix and Vampires. Tezuka had fought loosing battles over control of his manga, and especially over his anime which he was never satisfied with as producers insisted on happier endings and watered-down political messages. Thus Tezuka was at his most depressed and pessimistic in the early seventies when he turned his attention to new projects.

From 1972 to 1983, Tezuka's exploration of charismatic villains and the appeal of evil continued to manifest in many stories, from the violent social commentaries of Ayako(1972-73) and MW , to the more playful evil of Sharaku in The Three-Eyed One (1974-78), a charming boy who, with the removal of the bandage over his third eye, literally transforms from a sweet but childlike simpelton to a charismatic but terrifying evil demon. But Rock did not appear in these stories. Instead, Rock's progression brought him into Tezuka's two long-term projects of the period, two of his best-loved manga aimed at adult readers, the medical drama Black Jack (1973-83), and his biography of Buddha (1972-83).

Section one: DARK ROCK

While almost all of Tezuka's recurring characters continued to play the same types of roles in all their appearances from beginning to end, Rock underwent a unique and definitive transformation in 1966, which divided not only his career but Tezuka's in half. Vampires (available in French), serialized from 1966 to 1969 was an entirely new kind of story for Tezuka in which he took as his subject the innate animal desire to do evil which, he believed, lives stifled inside all human beings. This was a stark break from his earlier good hero vs. villain stories, as for the first time he presented evil in an appealing light.

Vampires is, just like the others, a story of two races coming into conflict, here humans and the Vampires, but the "vampires" in Vampires seem very alien to the standard definition of a vampire. They do not drink blood, are not immortal, are not confined to night time, indeed do not have any of the characteristic traits of a vampire, but are simply people who transform into beasts - werewolves, or in some cases were-snakes, were-bats, were-goats, were-alligators or a variety of other creatures. They are called vampires, though, because they can prey upon humans, not for blood, but for anything they want, from meat to money. Because these transforming creatures have the minds of animals, they are free from the human constraints of conscience and morality and can pray on men, and on one another, as freely as wild beasts.

Section 1: BOY DETECTIVES

Detective Boy Rock Holmes (少年探偵ロック・ホ-ム) began serialization October 1st 1949, only a few weeks after the October 15th publication of Metropolis. The name "Rock Holmes" (ロック・ホ-ム pronounced Ro-ku Ho-me) came from the Japanese pronunciation of Sherlock Holmes, "She-ro-ku Ho-me." As Tezuka explains in the introductions to Lost World (1948) and Nextworld (1951), in this early stage of his career his stories tended to focus on 'boy hero' characters like Kenichi and Shinichi, and a later creation, Astro Boy. These virtuous, innocent but intelligent young boys could serve as alter-egos for the boy readers who made up a large part of his target market. Usually aged fourteen or younger, these virtuous and innocent adventurers were usually explorers, detectives or journalists, often apprentices assisting a father or uncle.

A study of reincarnation in Osamu Tezuka's Star System, by Ada Palmer.

ESSAY OUTLINE:

INTRODUCTION: Rock's Many Incarnations
Section 1: Sources
Section 2: First Encounter

PART 1: Childhood: Rock Holmes (1949-1965)
Section 1: Boy Detectives
Section 2: Adventures of Rock
Sectoin 3: Truer Hero: Astro Boy

PART 2: Transformation: Makube Rokuro (1966-1971)
Section 1: Dark Rock
Section 2: The Transforming One
Section 3: Reincarnation
TANGENT: 1968 – PRINCE NORMAN and PRINCESS KNIGHT
Section 4: Unforgivable

PART 3: Resolution: Black Jack and Buddha (1972-1978)
Section 1: Distrust
Section 2: Doctor and Patient
Section 3: The Enlightened One
Section 4: Acceptance

PART 4: Afterlife (1980 to today)

The list is not comprehensive, but includes all the appearances listed on the Tezuka World web page, plus later works and at least fifteen early appearances omitted by the official list. There are certain to be more, and new listings are added as we find them. More info on some of these series can be found at Red Zone. For more information, see the 'Rock Holmes: Transformation' Analytical Essay.

Total appearances: 90 and counting.

1948 - The Moony Man, as the detective
1949 – Detective boy, Rock Home (Holmes)
1949 – Rock does NOT appear in the original Metropolis manga
1950 – Manga University (as Bessy)
1950 – Cuckoo clock event
1951 – The Road to Utopian Lurue (as the Manga Artist)
1951 – Next World
1951 – The new volume Monn World Gentleman (as the private Investigator, Danbara Eijiro)
1951 – Fossil Island (as the Journalist)
1951 - Tezuka decides at the last minute to substitute the lighter character Saboten Sam for Rock as the protagonist of a manga called Saboten-kun, on the grounds that Rock was too dark.