Tezuka In English Discussion Forums

Tezuka writes himself into his manga so often. The most unintrusive is when he does an "intro," like before each story in Astro Boy. Most intrusive - Vampires, where he is a heavily-involved character (who evades death several times!) It goes along with his often-hilarious ideas of breaking the 4th wall ("He can't die, this is a manga!"), etc.

So here's my question - what is it about Tezuka that when he writes himself into his stories, it seems totally natural and far from "Mary Sue-ing" or vanity?
I never really seemed to think of it in a bad way at all.

Here's something to contrast with it...
Woody Allen.
I'm not a huge fan of his films, but he appears in a lot of them as someone who is basically himself (and who often ends up with a girl who is way prettier than he deserves ). As much as Woody Allen likes to parody himself, it all seems....kinda vain.

Yet with Tezuka, it's totally different. He wrote a number of semi-autobiographies, even, but we don't get the sense that he is just trying to write all about himself because he thinks he's great or something.

What are your thoughts on this subject?

Ok, Recca_Phoenix wins the award for "Best Topic for awhile".

The fact that I think you're right about Tezuka not coming across as vain despite personally inserting himself into several of his stories is a bit thought-provoking. I'm not sure why that is exactly - maybe it's because he's quite self-deprecating in his appearances.

I think we don't really see Tezuka making long-term appearances until later on his career - Vampires is probably the best example. I think part of that might be because by that point in his career Tezuka had become somewhat of a character himself, and the readers probably readily excepted him as part of the tale.

I think a difference between his appearances and (using your example) Woody Allen's, is that while Woody usually plays a thinly veiled version of himself, Tezuka is playing "himself". TV shows like the the Jack Benny Show, the Chris Isaak show or Seinfeld are more similar in that they present the characters as "themselves", and the situations that they get into are usually funny and at their own expense.

I just happened to find this:



while searching for info on The Monster of the 38th Parallel
While the specail lacks subs, ep 1 has them, & I assume e 2 also has them.