WEEK 10: MANGA

For this week, I read Volume 4 of Tezuka Osamu’s “Hi No Tori” (Phoenix). I must confess that I have not read a lot of Osamu’s work in the past, mostly because the time I started reading manga was long after his active years. I am glad to have been able to read Karma though, because I now understand why Osamu is so revered by the animation industry. The way that he told the story was really captivating and dramatic. I loved the majestic, wide pages of the scenery and the buddhas throughout the manga. His renderings were so intricate and beautiful, which provided a great contrast from his characters. I found them to be quite simple and caricatured, even more so than modern manga. Gao, the main character, was especially exaggerated with his shapes. His nose and body were massive, and in manga it was kind of shocking to see a character look like that. Typically, men are extremely fit or skinny to appeal to female audiences, even in shounen manga. If they are rounder, then they’re probably a side comedic character so they can push the shapes to extremes. That’s why it was surprising that Osamu chose to make his main character so unconventionally attractive. Even his personality was unattractive to me. I didn’t know whether to like him or dislike him, even in the ending. Even though he attained a tranquil state of Buddhism and became a godly figure, I couldn’t find it in myself to forgive him for what kind of person he was. When he started to turn over a new leaf, he was still being violent and unapologetic (striking back at the palace horsemen). I guess it was interesting since he didn’t follow the tropes of the heroic MC, but I think I would have preferred a character with more development.

Overall I really liked reading this manga. I don’t get to read a lot of historical fiction books but I appreciate the genre a lot since it’s based on real history. It was cool to read little narratives in the manga explaining what had happened, kind of like a history lesson. I read that it was based in 8^th century Japan, and you can tell that Osamu really put in the research with how detailed and well-developed his backgrounds were. The themes regarding political views and religion were really intriguing as well, and still relevant even in modern times. I can definitely see why this volume is regarded as Osamu’s masterpiece.