DESARROLLO DE INHIBIDORES CONTRA EL SURCO DE ANCLAJE

s u s A N N e P H I L L I P P s

The legendary manga artist and anime producer Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989), known in Japan as the manga no kamisama or “god of Japanese comics,” played a crucial role in the development of postwar manga. Active artistically for more than forty years, he left behind approximately 150,000 manuscript pages after his death. As a pioneer, he tested the narrative possibilities that word-picture combinations offer. Thus, the development of the so-called story manga (sutorii manga) is associated with his name.¹

In his search for new forms of storytelling, Tezuka hearkened back to the Japanese tradition of word-picture combinations and, at the same time, introduced new pictorial elements from U.S. and european cinema. Like novelists and movie directors, Tezuka gath-ered his themes and characters from all sources: Asian and european history, the world’s fairy tales and myths, American science fiction films, and english detective stories. In the treasure trove of Tezuka’s manga, one can find all possible genres with the idiosyncratic narrative patterns and the characters associated with them. Tezuka’s manga are populated not only by samurai and ghosts, and robots and extraterrestrials, but also by actresses like Marilyn Monroe and comic book heroes like Dick Tracy. Through his manga, many motifs and characters from Western popular culture found their way to Japan.

At the beginning of his career, Tezuka was able to strike the right chord for the children who were his readers with his adventure and science fiction stories. In the 1950s, he dominated the manga industry, monopolizing it to a degree that would be impossible for any one artist to accomplish today. Like all who are involved in popular culture, he was sensitive to the dictates of his readers: works that did not appeal to their tastes were quickly abandoned for projects that would sell. However, he was also at the mercy of his readership’s changing preferences. By the 1960s, Tezuka was no longer considered a trendsetter. His predominance was challenged when new kinds of stories gained popularity. Called gekiga (dramatic pictures), these comics were new in several respects. First, they came from a new generation of artists located in Osaka, not Tokyo, where the established artists lived. Second, they were

new because they were realistically drawn and featured graphic scenes of violence.

Tezuka found himself fending off journalists who declared that he was all washed up.

envious of gekiga’s success, Tezuka fiercely attacked his new artist-competitors, but he also responded by adapting gekiga’s stylistic innovations to his own work. Gekiga spurred Tezuka to abandon old formulas that he had favored for new themes, plots, and character concepts. Finally, after this phase of experimentation, Tezuka hit on a winning synthesis that used the gekiga format to embellish his dramatic manga epics about key moments in world history.

In terms of narrative style, we can distinguish three periods in Tezuka’s career: (1) his early “classical” period from 1947 to the mid-sixties, (2) his horror-gothic period in the seventies, and (3) his historical-realistic period from approximately the mid-seventies to his death in 1989.

From 1947 to the Mid-Sixties: Tezuka’s Classical Period

Tezuka’s first manga, Shin-takarajima (New Treasure Island, 1947), is an adventure story combining elements of Tarzan, Treasure Island, and Robinson Crusoe. It be-came a best-seller with about 400,000 copies sold. Shin-takarajima marked a turning point in the history of manga: for the first time, children could read an exciting story not as a serialized newspaper column, but as a manga book of nearly 200 pages from beginning to end.

After the success of Shin-takarajima, Tezuka drew other manga that were pub-lished as “red-book manga” (akahon manga), so named because they were printed on cheap paper and bound in a red cover. They were sold by sweets merchants in the Matsuyamachi district of Osaka. His ideas came from a supply of approximately 3,000 pages that he had drawn and bound into books as a youngster during the war. Here, one can find a major reason for the great success of Tezuka’s early publications; most of the adventure and science fiction stories of this early phase are revised versions of those that came from the pen of a boy who was not much older than his readership, rather than an adult who saw manga as a didactic tool to educate children.

In this early phase, Tezuka wrote three kinds of tales: adventure stories, science fiction stories, and period romances. In contrast to Shin-takarajima, these manga were not originally published as books but appeared in magazines running over many, many years, with a form and content that always responded to readers’ changing tastes. For each type he drew manga from dozens to hundreds of pages long. In the early fifties, when he developed his cartoon stars, these stories became long-running bestsellers.

All were hits, such as the adventure story Janguru taitei (Kimba the White Lion, 1950–1954, literally, “Ruler of the jungle”), the science fiction story Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy, 1951–1968, literally, “Ironarm Atom”), and the period romance Ribon no kishi (Princess Knight, 1953–1956, literally, “Knight with Ribbons”). The publication of these three serialized manga marked the first triumph of Tezuka’s career. They were so successful financially—all three even gained popularity abroad—that Tezuka was able to establish his own anime studio.

Adventure Stories

Adventure stories contain all the exotic locales and extraordinary situations that one can imagine: The heroes struggle to survive in a tropical jungle, either because they had to make an emergency landing or because they are on an unusual expedition to solve some mystery. en route, they find strange old towers, ruins of Inca towns, springs of immortality, and so on. The adventurers are attacked by eagles, crocodiles, black panthers, and gigantic poisonous spiders, as happens in Sharigawa no himitsu kichi (The Secret Base of Shari-River, 1948). The plot of these wilderness adventure stories is always structured upon the opposition between civilization and nature: “civiliza-tion,” personified by the heroes, is characterized by advanced scientific thinking, whereas “nature,” personified by the ignorant savages they encounter in the jungle, means silly superstition.

Science Fiction Stories

Tezuka’s science fiction manga are radically different from his exotic adventure stories.

examples of this type include Chiteikoku no kaijin (The Mysterious Men Down in the earth, 1948), Metoroporisu (Metropolis,1949), Kitarubeki sekai (Next World, 1951), 38 doseij÷o no kaibutsu (The Monster on the 38th Parallel, 1953), Taiheiy÷o x-pointo

Stamp of Osamu Tezuka and his most famous characters—Astro Boy, Leo, Princess Sapphire, and Black Jack. (Copyright Tezuka Productions)

(Point X in the South Pacific, 1953), and Daik÷ozui jidai (The Age of the Great Flood, 1955). Rather than being escapist fantasies, these manga directly reflect Japan’s war experiences and the privations of the postwar period. The stark realities of the time are made clear in Tezuka’s sharply detailed portrayals of life, down to the small details of its cruelties. The young Ken’ichi, for example, who appears in almost all of these early manga, is a character with whom many Japanese could closely identify. He has lost his parents in the war, and now his uncle, Hige Oyaji, has to take care of him.

In Tezuka’s science fiction stories, the conflict that structures the narrative is based upon the opposition between democracy and dictatorship. While “democracy” stands for sincerity and responsibility, “dictatorship” stands for unscrupulousness and callow, self-serving egotism. Tezuka penned many stories about how the policies of an irre-sponsible government run by a dictator end in disaster. The characters who are part of the totalitarian regime ruthlessly oppress their subordinates and torture any dissenters.

The people, lacking will and incapable of action, have no influence on the decisions of the selfish rulers. While the officers and governmental officials prosecute the war from a safe distance, the populace—a mob whipped into a frenzy—is exposed to a hail of bombs. Panicked, they try to flee, while others—buried alive and shouting for help—are abandoned to their miserable fate. Reading these manga, Tezuka’s readers could not only reexperience the horrors of war, but also feel fear about the possibility

Ken’ichi—A character in Tezuka’s early manga with whom fans could closely identify.

(Copyright Tezuka Productions)

of new ones. As such, these stories are a reaction to contemporary history, and, above all, to the outbreak of the Korean War.

Tezuka’s story lines, therefore, are generally deeply pessimistic. The world has become a slaughterhouse; there is no corner left to withdraw to and be safe from violence. He repeatedly portrays the destruction of the world as a flood that buries everything under it, as in Daik÷ozui jidai (The Age of Great Flood,1955). He expresses his hope for a rescue using the biblical image of Noah’s Ark. People try to escape on rafts or leave the earth in spaceships. If enough time remains, pairs of animals are entered on inventory lists to be taken along on board. These stories often have heroes, too—young adventurers who rescue earth and humanity. Here the opposition, nar-ratively, is between children and adults. The adults are selfish, uncompromising. and incapable of handling the awesome powers of new technologies responsibly. Great rulers end up being egotistical maniacs who cut ridiculous figures. By contrast, the young are reasonable, self-sacrificing, and fight valiantly against the corrupt evil adults to save the world.

As in all good science fiction stories, things do not occur by happenstance but can be explained (pseudo)scientifically. For example, the apocalyptic flood is caused by global warming after nuclear test explosions. Many stories end happily after the evil knowledge that has wreaked havoc has been destroyed, but it is also clear that scientific progress is unstoppable; the danger remains that some mad ruler will get his hands on this new technology once again and use it for nefarious purposes. Tezuka’s ambiva-lence toward science is personified by different scientists who appear as characters.

He repeatedly uses scenes of conferences and congresses where scientific experts gather from all over the world. Among them, there is always a mix of personalities.

Invariably, along with the few modest and far-sighted researchers who warn of the consequences of new discoveries, there are also arrogant braggarts who announce smugly that “1+1 = 2,” and greedy scientists hungry for money and ready to sell their inventions to the highest bidder, as in Meturoporisu (1949, 18–19).

Romantic Fantasies

In Tezuka’s romantic fantasies one can see influences from three main sources: Ger-man fairy tales, from which he borrows plots; Disney characters, from which he takes stylistic features; and the Takarazuka women’s revue, from which he takes scenes that he incorporates into his manga tableau.

Tezuka’s stories are full of fairy-tale motifs. For example, Akai yuki (Red Snow, 1955) tells the story of an outcast orphan girl who later marries the son of the czar, a version of the Cinderella tale that, in this manga, is set in old Russia. extremely im-plausible plot twists lead finally to a happy ending. The girl’s key talent, which allows her to rise socially, is her singing. Thus, notes dance across the manga’s pages with little birds, which flit around twittering the melody. Replete with romantic moments, Tezuka won over girls as manga readers with these pieces.

Animal figures, which play an important role in all early manga of Tezuka, appear

in these stories in great numbers. Their resemblance to Disney deer, squirrels, bunnies, and so on is obvious, and one can even encounter famous Disney versions of charac-ters from Western popular culture, such as Snow White or Peter Pan. Many of these manga are set in czarist Russia. In sharp contrast to the ultramodern skyscrapers and high-tech factories that form the backdrop of his science fiction stories, the scenes in Tezuka’s romances are reminiscent of postcards of Russian Orthodox churches, filled with round onion turrets covered with snow.

Many also call to mind the Takarazuka all-women revue’s costume plays, which still remain popular today with sold-out performances at their Osaka and Tokyo the-aters (Robertson 1998). As a boy, Tezuka went to many of their performances with his mother, and he liberally imported themes, plots, scenery, scene sequences, and characters from the stage into his manga. Thus, these had enormous influence on Tezuka’s girls’ manga.

Tezuka’s most famous costume drama is Princess Knight. It is the story of Princess Sapphire, a medieval european princess who has to disguise herself as a prince to succeed to the throne. The basic plot device in the story is that the princess must play a double role, constantly changing her dress, and thus her identity, to fool everyone.

This gives Tezuka a wide latitude for thinking about gender roles and female identity.

The opening scene of Ribon no kishi (Princess Knight, version drawn 1958–59) shows a giant staircase, like the illuminated one on the stage of Takarazuka, the trademark of the revue.

(Copyright Tezuka Productions)

As girls’ manga (sh÷ojo manga) developed, it is this exploration of what it means to be a girl, fathoming the inside world of the heroines, that became a central element of the genre.

Influences from Abroad

The adventure and science fiction manga of Tezuka’s early phase reveal his thorough knowledge of American and european adventure tales like Tarzan, Treasure Island, or Robinson Crusoe, Hollywood, and the UFA (the former German film production industry) films. Over and over again, one finds famous film scenes reappearing in Tezuka’s stories. For example, the being that is brought to life by scientists and slowly rises from the operating table in Tezuka’s Metoroporisu (1949, 29) is inspired by Fritz Lang’s robot woman in Metropolis, and the automatic food dispenser for factory work-ers in Shinsekai Rur÷u (literally, New World Lurue, 1951, 192) comes originally from Charles Chaplin’s Modern Times. Tezuka altered the scenes for his young Japanese audience, gave them an entirely new context, and enriched them with the biological knowledge he had acquired while studying medicine.

Tezuka had mixed feelings about the United States, a love-hate relationship that alternated between rejecting and borrowing from American popular culture. On the one hand, the United States was Japan’s former enemy. In one of Tezuka’s science fic-tion stories, Sekai o horobosu otoko (The Destroyer of the World, 1954), for example, American generals discuss dropping another newly developed bomb on Japan. On the other hand, America positively symbolized adventure, progress, and the future.

Tezuka’s manga often featured idealized utopian American cityscapes depicting a way of life that was still foreign to Japanese children. Popular culture scholar Mitsutoshi Ishigami describes his ambiguous feelings as a boy toward Tezuka’s manga by saying that he felt a sense of strangeness (iwakan) and curiosity when looking at Tezuka’s cityscapes filled with their skyscrapers and foreign letters on the roadsigns because english was the language of the enemy. Japanese children did not learn english before 1945 (Ishigami 1977, 36). More and more American english crept into the titles of Tezuka’s manga. At first, Tezuka ornamented his title pages with transcriptions in the Roman alphabet, which added an exotic flavor to them. Later, he added english sub-titles that were more or less correct translations of the Japanese originals, and finally, he used english titles, as in Metropolis written in Latin script and in the Japanese katakana (Ishigami 1977, 28–37).

In addition, Tezuka added American cinematic features to his manga. In particular, he adapted the technique of cinematic montage by making sequences of panels to mimic movement or scene changes. For example, he might use a sequence of several panels that depicted a figure moving closer to the “camera” (viewer) of a scene.

A typical Tezuka narrative illustrates his special talent as an innovative borrower, an artist who could seamlessly fold Western plots into Japanese stories. Tezuka alter-nated his basic five-part plot structure in various manga, such as Astro Boy, Mitsume ga t÷oru, and Dororo. His five-part structure consisted of the following:

1. An imperfect child is born or created. In one version, the father promises the body of his child to demons to enlist their help so he can stay in power (Hyakkimaru in Dororo). In the other, more frequently used version, a mad or obsessed scientist creates a son, as in the case of Astro Boy; this son starts life as a child rather than a fully grown adult like the Western Frankenstein or the Terminator. In any case, the child has physical problems that were caused by his father. Angry about the child’s imperfections, the bad father abandons him against the wishes of the weak mother.

2. The child is found by a man who lovingly takes care of him. Here, we see a central motif of Japanese fairy tales at work. This is the motif of the child sent by the gods (m÷oshigo), as in the tale of the peach boy, Momotar÷o. every Japanese child knows this story, which exists in countless variations.² 3. The stepfather, who is a brilliant scientist or doctor, provides the boy with

special augmentations (e.g., Astro Boy’s special equipment, radar, rocket drive, Hyakkimaru’s artificial organs that allow him to live).

4. Through these special enhancements, the boy gains new powers, but also suffers a split in his personality. While living like an average schoolboy, an experience he shares with children his same age (and also the readers), he uses his unusual abilities for good. Because he is largely artificial, the boy wonders about his identity: Is he a human being or a robot?

5. The child rewards his stepfather by fighting criminals or ghosts. This plot becomes a kind of hero myth that also has the character of a detective story, like Batman in American comics. Tezuka’s most famous crime fighter is Astro Boy.

A trembling robot comes to life in Metropolis. (Copyright Tezuka Productions)

The Cast of Characters

Tezuka authored several instructional books on drawing manga that provide in-sights into his understanding of style, character development, and narrativity. In Manga no kakikata (How to Draw Comics, 1977), he compares manga to children’s drawings. In his eyes, children draw innocently, not in the sense of a realistic portrait, like a photo, but expressively, directly putting down their impressions of their surroundings. Similarly, Tezuka argues that drawing good comics involves omission (sh÷oryaku), exaggeration (koch÷o), and variation (henkei). Correct propor-tion for a realistic sketch is unnecessary. On the contrary, to express an emopropor-tion, abrupt alterations in figuration are appropriate. Thus, his characters may look like rubber dolls whose heads can reach the ground when submissively bowing and whose arms become elastic, unnaturally extending far out to grab a beer bottle they desire. During a fight, the head, arms, or legs can even fly away temporarily from the body. Strictly speaking, Tezuka’s ideal is to make manga with a childlike innocence, but also in a way that takes its cue from early American animation, which is like a stack of images that simulate movement when flipped at high speed.

The only component absent in Tezuka’s manga is the musical background that accompanies the animated film.

It is in his treatment of his characters that Tezuka comes closest to the role of a modern film director or stage manager. The science fiction and adventure stories of Tezuka’s early period are not serials. Content-wise they stand as independent works.

It is in his treatment of his characters that Tezuka comes closest to the role of a modern film director or stage manager. The science fiction and adventure stories of Tezuka’s early period are not serials. Content-wise they stand as independent works.