Tezuka In English Discussion Forums

Did Tezuka really create a sexually-explicit, X-rated film called "Cleopatra: Queen of Sex"?

mod: changed the title to the subject of the film

Check out the discussion of it here (along with Belladonna):

http://forums.tezukainenglish.com/viewt ... 6&start=15

My understanding is that Cleopatra is not intentionally a sexploitation film but was marketed as such (that said, it is apparently very open with explicit scenes.)

Belladonna however seems to be a psychedelic feast (at least from what I could see in the youtube clips), but is also more a work of Tezuka's studio rather than Tezuka directly. I'm very curious about this later film and may end up ordering it (although it would be without subtitles.)

Again, if you haven't experienced the later period Tezuka and only know Astroboy and Kimba, this may be a huge shock; but the later period Tezuka is extremely mature, and does not use exploitational imagery meaninglessly. Rather, he often uses shocking imagery to convey corruption, self-betrayal and othr forms of human weakness. When you come to recognize that before anything else that Tezuka is a story-teller, and these stories are never missing strong moral deciscions meant to be confrontational to the reader.

Now if Tezuka had boys pissing on each other just for fun and this was not important in the formation of the character, that would be something else, but this and many other shocking things (thinking of the scene where a snake eats a baby in Kirihito) are there to show us something. In this sense Tezuka really has shown his amazing ability as a creator of stories--he hasn't shied away from human ugliness, but instead has waded in without ever changing his convictions. Basically, if it was within the range of human experiences, Tezuka had no qualms dealing with it directly.

Edit: I feel it is worth adding that there is very much a trend right now where the only Tezuka in english that is being published is his more adult work. I can understand why, hoping to change the view of Tezuka from 'creator of Astroboy' into something more, however there is something defeated by this as well.

I think we ARE supposed to be shocked by some of these scenes that you've brought up elsewhere. I think we are supposed to have been reading Tezuka for 25 years or so, grown up with Astroboy and maybe even see Tezuka as a sort of Walt Disney. It is within that context that we are supposed to view Tezuka's more mature work. It is probably unfortunate that we come to Tezuka now when our senses have been dulled by reading manga like 'Lone Wolf and Cub' and 'Berzerk'. If you can instead imagine Walt Disney (as in, the man named Walt Disney) penning stories in the 70's like Phoenix, Adolph, Buddha, etc., then I think you get how this might have been experienced by the Japanese people.

Ha! I kind of wish Walt Disney had done something like that!

What kind of stuff is shown in this film, and how explicit is it?

If you check out the link above, there are links imbedded in there for youtube clips. You can see it for yourself. Probably tame by today's standards (whatever today's standards are...)

I don't really believe Tezuka had such an intention. I guess it's actually a person's perception that influences the whole view on whatever that is.