Tezuka In English Discussion Forums

Somehow this all makes sense---everyone I know who really praises Leiji Matsumoto is from Europe or Japan which makes me think (again) that his best works are probably not in print in the US. Obviously the exception being the anime of Arcadia of my Youth, which is AMAZING.

Yeah, I did a bit more searching for Leiji Matsumoto and it is like I feared, basically there is little available by him in English except the galaxy express 999 manga, that may or may not be worth it (see Strobe_z's comment.)

On DVD there are numerous works, but of the classics there are only: Arcadia of my Youth ($89 on Amazon!!!) and Star Blazers (I haven't bothered with this series yet as I've heard many neutral/negative things about it.)

Then of course there are the newer works--Harlock's 'ring cycle' thing, the 'Herlock' series, and the new Galaxy Railways series (which I've heard good things about.

The problem is, these are NOT the pieces that people recommend as far as Leiji Matsumoto's work, and clearly none of the manga is there. Man, sometimes English just isn't the language of choice.

I should probably partially retract my earlier statement in regards to the Viz manga series. When I posted earlier I was going from memory, and I remembered there was a reason I wasn't that interested in getting the Viz manga.

After doing a little re-checking, I remember now that the the Viz manga series is done by Matsumoto, but it's basically the sequel to Galaxy Express 999. Not having read the original I was a bit hesitant (partially for the reasons Jiminy mentions) but largely because I often think creators that have struck gold once should not try to "fix it" (I have much the same feelings about Kazuo Koike's sequel to Lone Wolf & Cub).

I'm a huge fan of Queen Emeraldas, Capt Harlock, and Galaxy Express 999. (well I grew up on it along with Tezuka's stuff ^^;; ) It's been a loooong time since I went back and re-read them though ^^;;. (I get what I can get but, they are still a bit hard to find in any language other than Japanese for me T.T )

I'd say they are worth the read. Matsumoto-sensei's stuff are very over the top and he likes you hit you over the head with philosophies... he's definetly a different story teller than Tezuka-sensei.

But in my opinion, to understand that era, the era that Tezuka-sensei lived in and wrote his manga (his later years anyway), I think it'd a good idea to read it and see how those mangakas bounced their ideas off each other?

I believe Tezuka was writing Black Jack, The Three-Eyed One, Buddha, Unico, Undersea Super Train: Marine Express around that time. It's fun to research what kind of manga or events were happening at the same time Tezuka-sensei wrote those manga

I was actually fixing to make my own Matsumoto thread......good thing I found this one first.


Yes, Leiji Matsumoto is one of the living legends of the manga/anime world. The man is pure genius incarnate. The guy pretty much ran the entire anime/manga industry from the late seventies until the early 80s. His Leijiverse (the far future universe where many of his science fiction takes place) is a wonderful, unique place which Matsumoto uses as his proverbial sandbox, creating various characters, machines and planets in order to convey his philosophy of humanity, with intruiging allegory and social commentary.

And it's his philosophy that I find truly intruiging. Unlike the traditional, collectivist philosophies of old Japan, Leiji Matsumoto instead conveys a rather individualist, Ayn Rand-like philosophy of Libertarianism and self-reliance. Captain Harlock himself is pretty much John Galt (read Atlas Shrugged) in a spaceship. Furthermore, although Matsumoto often uses his work to convey his vision of 'manhood', his work is in no way mysogynistic. In fact, the women in his works are often beacons of wisdom and stability, whereas men are often the bringers of chaos. All of this is of course combined with his strongly anti-war sentiment.

To those intrested, there is currently both a newer Captain Harlock anime, as well as the original Star Blazers (aka Space Battleship Yamamoto) available on DVD in the States. Furthermore, the Galaxy Express 999 manga available in the States is quite enjoyable, and in fact can be enjoyed even without reading the original.

Anyway, as you guys can see, I'm rather passionate about Matsumoto.

The problem I've had is that rhiengold series (I can't remember what they actually called is), didn't seem that good to me. I see there is a new Harlock series (herlock???), but I am assuming it isn't even going to touch Arcadia of my youth, so I'm still keeping my distance. As I recall I put it in my netflicks.