Here is the part about Tezuka.
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CHILDHOOD DREAMS COME TRUE: MEETING OSAMU TEZUKA
Adrian Tomine: There’s a lot of real life figures in A Drifting Life. A lot of them were unfamiliar to me, but many of us know Osamu Tezuka who looms rather large over the story. I was personally surprised to see how much of a role Tezuka played in your life, since your style seems so different from his. Can you talk a bit about his influence, and how have your paths diverged or met?
Yoshihiro Tatsumi: When I was in elementary school and junior high school, I used to draw 4-panel comics on postcards. I’d send them to the various comic magazines all over town. I just loved manga so much, so I just drew and drew and kept sending them in.
One day a newspaper reporter came to my house wanting to write an article about me. This incident was also in A Drifting Life. This gave me the opportunity to meet Osamu Tezuka in person.
I had read lots of manga by Tezuka. It was a totally new unbelievable world compared to the other manga out there. I would look for Tezuka’s books and I take them home and read them. I thought, someone who could write works like this would have to be the most amazing person, like with light coming off of him (laughs). So in my child’s heart, I thought he must be the most amazing, amazing person.
Like I said before, when the reporter came, he asked me which manga artists I liked, so of course I said 'Tezuka!' 'Oh, you like Tezuka too?' the reporter said. 'So maybe I should introduce you to him?' That’s how it ended up that we had this roundtable discussion with Tezuka and the three other young manga artists.
From the time I heard about that meeting, it was about half a month before I would meet him, that’s all I could think about, was meeting Tezuka. There was nothing else in my head. Just Tezuka, Tezuka! Tezuka! (laughs)
So this happened when I was in junior high. I was in 9th grade. I thought for so long this guy was a god to me. We were so anxious to meet him; it was like a dream! We were waiting at the office to meet him. Then we heard the knock on the door. When he came in, we all sat up straight and thought, 'Wow! He’s here!' (laughs)
This is not an advertisement for my book or anything, but this whole story is in there, so please read it! (laughs)
Adrian Tomine: The work that I’ve read of Tezuka’s is generally fantasy-oriented, science fiction, or more geared toward children. Were you ever inspired by the subject matter of his work?
Yoshihiro Tatsumi: Well of course, I was interested in what he was writing about. He wrote all these books about a world that we couldn’t even imagine, and he put them out one after another!
He wrote all these stories where there was so much movement. People were moving, falling and rolling. The relationships between men and women, he just drew them so well! The relationships between people he drew, it was so amazing.
Yoshihiro Tatsumi: From my child’s perspective it was all new and fresh, and it really moved me. Now I look at these same stories, maybe I’m not as moved now. But from a child’s perspective, it was definitely really powerful.
When I first became a manga artist, I did things that were more oriented toward children, because I wanted to create that kind of feeling in kids too.
Adrian Tomine: But that’s not the kind of work that D&Q has published, no?
Yoshihiro Tatsumi: Definitely not, no. (laughs)
Adrian Tomine: Your relationship with Tezuka has kind of come full circle. A Drifting Life won a major award in Tezuka’s name. Can you talk about that?
Yoshihiro Tatsumi: Osamu Tezuka was writing stuff geared to kids, and he had a really good influence on kids. Whereas the stories I was writing when I became a professional, it was more uhm... well, not so wholesome. (laughs)
Tezuka was writing stories where justice always triumphed, the hero got the girl in the end, and everything just kind of worked out. But when we did our stories, the good guy would lose, and things aren’t going to turn out so good – and that was not considered to have a good influence on kids.
We didn’t worry about our work being too violent, but there was some concern that kids would pick it up and read it. That was very different situation compared with Tezuka’s work.
I considered Tezuka like a god for so long when I was a kid, and more and more I was doing work that was in a very different vein. I started to feel like I couldn’t meet him anymore. So whenever there was a chance that I might see or meet Tezuka, like at publishers’ parties, before we would have a chance to meet or talk, I would always run away from the party. (laughs)
So I kind of felt I had come down a few steps from where Tezuka was. I felt like I didn’t have the face to present to him, just couldn’t really meet him anymore.
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COMMENT FROM ME. I hate to say this about a great artist but... what.
I thought Tezuka being influenced by gekiga and going "darker and edgier", especially in the late 70s, was common knowledge across the fandom. Apparently the very founder of gekiga missed the news. He pointedly evaded Tezuka - who might well have wanted to shake his hand and say something good!
"the hero got the girl in the end, and everything just kind of worked out" - um... in Phoenix Nostalgia or Ayako, like. He seems to remember the Tezuka of the 50s, of Astro Boy - that is, early Astro Boy, before the eventual ending.
Since this interview in 2009, someone might have told him already - but now Tezuka is dead for 20 years. And the meeting that he for some reason evaded won't happen...
"when we did our stories, the good guy would lose, and things aren’t going to turn out so good". Guess this is another of his stories, then
- All Life Is Sacred