Tezuka In English Discussion Forums

Boy, Tezuka sure racked up quite a body count by the end of that sucker.

Not sure I know what 'am' is, but yes, almost everyone dies in Lost World. This, Next World and Metropolis all strike me is 'immature' works by Tezuka (IE, they lack the craft of Jungle Emperor which is VERY early for Tezuka.) I've always found it strange that these three works got published in English by Dark Horse, given their overall weakness.

I think I like Lost World the most of the three incidentally, but that isn't saying much.

Actually, I liked the 3 SF stories for what they tried to be (IMO), (somewhat convulated) adventure stories. They're pretty much all based around the same premises, so I liked Next World the bext, being the best crafted / most evolved of the three.

But yeah.... I thought it was pretty sad how only Shunsaku Ban survived in LW :/

I agree that the three are very rough compared to later things, so they're good samples of Tezuka working on developing manga as a narrative medium. I'm always sad when I read Nextworld, though, knowing that the original was three times as long, and that (according to Tezuka's comments) a lot of what was cut explained the disjointedness of the plot. Even worse, apparently a lot of it was about Rock too, and how his military training tranformed him from light to dark - if only I could've seen that when I was writing my essay! *sigh*

the &am tacked on to the end of jonerik's original post was the forum spitting up a bit of UBB code... something was wrong with the final ", but I've fixed it now.

As for Lost World/Nextworld/Metropolis and body counts... I still remember my reaction to watching Moustachio gut a giant mouse from stem to stern and then wear the carcass as a disguise... I thought "I should quote this the next time someone calls Tezuka the "Walt Disney of Japan".

I'll support the motion here saying that those three works are much weaker than later Tezuka. Obviously you can see the potential and the sheer "raw imagination" he put into it, but he lacked the experience and polish of his latter years. Given the amount of reverse-editting Tezuka himself did on his own stories, I'm a little surprised he never re-visted those three in the same way he did with Princess Knight.

I also find it surprising that Dark Horse chose to go with those three as a follow up to Astro Boy. Smart money would say it was doomed from the start... unless you could find a way to market it to the same people that buy other early comic strip collections (more or less anything by Kitchen Sink Press). Given the fact that most manga fans won't touch Tezuka... it's a pretty big gamble to lead off with a trilogy that even avowed Tezuka nuts think are weak.

From what I understand, there's a complex spider-web of legalese behind licensing Jungle Emperor/Kimba (having to do with who owns what... in both the USA and Japan... and agreements that the manga won't appear unless there is a parallel television broadcast going on or something). So that leaves one of Tezuka's great stories and characters by the wayside, but there's a ton of stuff they could've gone with. I'm reading "Number 7" right now, and if they wanted a Sci-Fi story to partner with Astro Boy, this one would've been a good choice.

I also think Dororo would be a fine choice, but it's historical/samurai.

I was always under the impression the whole trilogy was supposed to tie-in with the Metropolis movie. I guess DH thought it would be commercial attractive to have a manga (with "prequel" and "sequel") of a relatively high-profile anime release.

The owner of DH is a Tezuka nut and had a crazy dream once to release Tezuka's complete works. Sadly the flop of the trilogy defeated that one, but I know they're still hoping to release more at some point. You're right that the movie was certainly part of the reason for the release.

I remember how excited I was back when they first came out, Nextworld especially. Back then I was just starting to research Rock and had only seen him in Metropolis, Phoenix and Black Jack. I was pennyless one weekend due to a banking error and came into the comics shop to look in my subscription bin, knowing I couldn't buy anything, and there was Nextworld 1 with Rock on the cover in all his glory. I almost started crying in frustration, but then my wonderful roommate bought it for me.