Tezuka In English Discussion Forums

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.

As for other things, I can't discuss some stuff without giving away things from MW, so should we wait or plow ahead?

I was watching the anime, & felt that the PI resembles Inspector Geta.

Also with respect to the orphanage being used as a site for experimentation on unwilling subjects, this reminds me of the idea that robots and even humans are of no consequence. Just as V. Von Frankenstein had no regard for the wellbeing of his creation, caring only to see whether he could make a man, & Dr. Tenma likewise felt the same way about Atom. Likewise for the human-animal hybrids in the anime of Bagi & 1 episode of the B&W AB. So, too the orphans who should suffer in that 'orphanage.' Though I suppose the Nazis' own experiments on twins & such may have had more of an influence on this series than any of those precedents.

Unfortunately, NF's online version has come up as unavailable for this series; so I have not gotten past #20.

I would like to know how faithful the anime is to the essentials of the manga.