Translations

Multilingual Astro Boy

English-language translations of Osamu Tezuka’s works have have come in several waves.  The earliest translation of his work was done as a labour of love by the amateur four-man team known as dadakai – which included noted manga scholar Frederick L. Schodt, author of Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics and Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga, two of the most influential and important books on the manga industry.  In 1977, the team began to translate chapters of Phoenix, with the unofficial approval of Osamu Tezuka himself. This translation was published, in part, in Schodt’s 1983 edition of Manga! Manga!, and later served as the foundation for VIZ’s edition of Phoenix.

It wasn’t until 1995 that the first of Tezuka’s works began to be published in English, with Cadence Books (a short-lived imprint of VIZ) edition of Adolf, and a portion of Black Jack published by VIZ  in two graphic novels shortly thereafter.

However, Tezuka’s English-speaking fans really hit the jackpot in the early 2000s.  A boom in manga popularity in general, saw VIZ publish Tezuka’s masterpiece, Phoenix; Dark Horse jump in with his most well-known work, Astro Boy; and Vertical Inc. hit a home run with an Eisner Award-winning hardcover edition of his epic fictional biography, Buddha.  This was somewhat of a “golden period”, with Tezuka works steadily being released (primarily by Vertical Inc.), including a near-as-possible complete edition of Black Jack.  However, by the end of the decade, new releases became fewer and farther between.

English-language translations of Osamu Tezuka’s works have have come in several waves.

Most recently, most Tezuka translated manga has come through the crowd-funding platform Kickstarter. First used to fund a new printing of Swallowing the Earth, DMP began successfully funding such diverse new projects such as Barbara, Unico, Atom Cat and Triton of the Sea.

Of course, older titles like Tezuka’s are, generally-speaking, much more popular in Europe than in America, and many series have been published there which are not out in English.  To date, there are more Tezuka manga out in French than in any other European language.

However, If you know of Tezuka translations into languages we haven’t listed, please let us know — we’d be happy to include them.