by putrocca » Mon Jul 16, 2007 6:13 pm
The big, of course, is at the end when Grimmer remembers that Roberto's real name is "Adolf Kauffman" aka. the half-German boy named Adolf from Tezika's Adolf. Also vital to understanding this reference is that Grimmer describes remembering Roberto as a child who "liked to draw and was fascinated by insects." That is clearly a description of Osamu Tezuka himself, who always describes himself that way in his self-portraits of childhood. Thus by this pair of references Urasawa is saying that, just as in Adolf the experiences of WWII were enough to turn the sweet child Adolf Kauffmann into a ruthless killer, so the experiences at 511 Kinderheim were enough to turn even Osamu Tezuka into a vicious murderer like Roberto.
- Ada (site founder - TezukaInEnglish.com)