The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 8 | Issue 38 | Number 1 | Sep 20, 2010

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War and Peace in the Art of Tezuka Osamu: The humanism ofhis epic manga　　手塚治虫の作品における戦争と平和−−その長編漫画のヒューマニズム

Yuki Tanaka

War and Peace in the Art of TezukaOsamu: The humanism of his epicmanga

Yuki Tanaka

Introduction

From late November 1944, the U.S. Air Forcebegan aerial bombing of Japan’s main islands.By the time the war ended on 15 August 1945,the United States had dropped a total of160,800 tons of conventional and incendiarybombs, as well as two atomic bombs. More thanninety percent of these bombs were dropped byB-29 bombers during the last five months of theAsia-Pacific War. In the end, almost 100 citiesand more than 300 towns and vil lagesthroughout Japan were targeted, causing morethan 1 million casualties including 560,000deaths. It is said that seventy percent of thosekilled were women and children. The greatdestruction and carnage from this intenseindiscriminate bombing campaign imposedsevere physical as well as psychologicaldamage on Japan’s society and people.

Ironically, the U.S. bombing campaign providedthe vital life experience for remarkably creativeexpressions by some young survivors, who laterbecame writers, artists, musicians or anti-warand peace activists. The US destruction thuscontributed to creating some of the mostimportant expressions of post-war Japaneseculture. One of the most outstanding examplesof this is Tezuka Osamu, a manga writer, who isnow known worldwide as the creator of Astro

Boy.

Tezuka Osamu was born in November 1928 inOsaka and died at the age of 60, in February1989. In his relatively short life he producedmore than 700 manga, both long and short,which in total amount to some 150,000 pages. Isuggest that four major features underlie thislarge body of work: respect for the naturalenvironment, respect for the life of every livingcreature, a deep scepticism towards scienceand civilization, and a strong commitment toanti-war and peace causes.

Here I focus on some of his early work from the1950s, while briefly introducing his later work.I also compare heroes in Tezuka’s epic mangawith superheroes in American comics.

Personal Background

Tezuka’s family history had a strong influenceon his ideology, which formed the basis formuch of his work. Both his great-great-grandfather, Tezuka Ryosen, and great-grandfather Tezuka Ryoan were “rangakui” (medicaldoctors who studied Dutch medical science) inthe late Edo period, and belonged to a smallgroup of progressive doctors who set up theanti-smallpox vaccination clinic in Kanda, Edoin 1858. They and their colleagues strove tointroduce modern Western medica ltechnologies into Japanese feudal society,overcoming the widespread and deep mistrustof “alien operations” among the generalpopulation as well as traditional doctors.(Between 1981 and 1986, Tezuka produced an11 volume long epic entitled Hidamari no Ki,

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The Tree Under Sunlight, a semi biographicalmanga on Tezuka Ryoan and Ryosen.) Tezuka’sgrandfather, Tezuka Taro, was a lawyer whoserved as chief public prosecutor of the OsakaDistrict Court and as the director of the PublicProsecutor’s Office in Nagoya and Nagasaki.He was also one of the founders of the KansaiLaw School (the present Law School of KansaiUniversity). Tezuka’s father, Tezuka Yutaka, anoffice worker for Sumitomo MetalworkIndustry, was deeply interested in photographyand film. In the 1930s, at a time when going tothe cinema was still a rare recreational activityfor many Japanese, he had a film projectorcalled “Patty Baby,” which he used to screenCharlie Chaplin films and Disney animations athome. Tezuka’s mother, Fumiko, was thedaughter of a senior officer of the JapaneseImperial Army, Lieutenant General HattoriHideo, who had remarkably liberated ways ofthinking for someone of her background (shebought many manga as well as other literatureincluding Japanese translations of foreignnovels and adventure stories for her children).It is obvious that Osamu inherited manycharacteristic elements from his parents andforebears. These elements are reflected in hiswork and contributed to the unique style of hismanga.

In 1933, when Tezuka was five years old, hisfamily moved from Osaka to Takarazuka.

Tezuka with his parents and sister

Even though it was a newly established smalltown in a rural district, surrounded by ricefields and mountains, it was a cultural centre:the Takarazuka Grand Theatre, where theextremely popular all-female Takarazuka Revueconstantly performed and still runs spectacularshows, was built in 1924, and other amusementfacilities such as Takarazuka Luna Park soonfollowed. In his boyhood, Tezuka developed anacute interest in insects and astronomy, findingthese aspects of rural life fascinating afterhaving moved from an urban area of Osakacity. From his early years at elementary school,he spent hours collecting insects andmeticulously recording them with detaileddrawings.

Tezuka’s sketchbook, 1942-43

Through such activities, he came to embrace aprofound respect for the natural environmentand for the life of every living creature. At thesame time, he became fascinated by musicaland theatrical performances, as his motheroften took him to the Takarazuka Revue. Hisfascination for Takarazuka musicals must alsohave stimulated his fondness for creatingstories, and while at school he often produced

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manga with interesting plot lines, whichcirculated not only amongst his classmates butalso his teachers.

The Takarazuka Revue, 1930

The Sino-Japanese War started in 1931 whenTezuka was 3 years old and the Pacific Warstarted in 1941 when he entered junior highschool at the age of 13. In summer 1944, hewas sent to a special training school set up forphysically weak junior high school boys, to dointensive military drills. However he becameseriously ill, having contracted a severe skindisease. From September that year, junior highschool classes were cancelled, and he wasmobilized with his fellow students to work at anarmy arsenal in Osaka.

From the end of 1944, U.S. forces beganbombing Japanese cities, and from thefollowing March fire-bombing intensified,targeting every major city and town throughoutJapan. Osaka city was attacked several times.The first bombing raid continued for threehours from midnight on 13 March 1945, when70,000 incendiary bombs were dropped on thecity, and 3,000 civilians were killed. From 1June, Osaka, the largest city in the Kansai area,was repeatedly attacked - on 7, 15 and 26 June,10 and 24 July and 14 August. In the last

bombing raid, on 14 August (the day beforeJapan’s official surrender), 700 one-ton bombswere dropped from 150 B-29 bombers. Themain target was the army arsenal near OsakaCastle, but some bombs fell on Kyobashirailway station, where two rows of passengertrains had just arrived, approaching fromopposite directions. Many civilians were killedby direct hits from these bombs. Overall, intotal, more than 10,000 civilians of Osaka citywere believed to have been killed in this seriesof U.S. bombing raids.

Tezuka experienced the fire-bombings of Osakawhile working at the arsenal. He was oftenreprimanded for drawing comics rather thanconcentrating on his work and as punishmenthe was ordered to climb the watchtower in thefactory yard to look out for B-29 bombers andgive the warning if he saw them. He laterdescribed one air raid:

‘As the air raid warning sirenbegan, I saw that as usual, aformation of U.S. bombers washeading towards us along theYodogawa River. As soon as Ithought “here they come,”incendiary bombs showered downon us, making a loud noise like aheavy rain. Bombs streamed downone after another onto the factory.Just when I thought that this wouldbe the end of my life, exposed onthe top of the watchtower, a bombhit the roof just two metersdirectly below me. Later I heardthat this bomb killed all the peoplewho had rushed into the air raidshelter underneath this building. Itumbled down the watchtower,screaming as if I had gone mad. Allaround me, the ground was a seaof fire … and houses in everydirection were burning withleaping flames making a rumbling

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sound. Then rain with black sootcame down. I walked to the top ofthe riverbank of the Yodogawa.From there, I saw many big cratershol lowed by bombs, wherenumerous objects which resembledhuman bodies were lying on top ofone another (The bodies were sofractured that they did not looklike human beings.)’

In 1974, Tezuka produced the autobiographicalmanga entitled The Paper Fortress (Kami noToride), describing this unforgettableexperience. His miraculous survival during thisfire-bombing episode had a profound impact onhis ideas of war and peace, and also imbuinghim with a deep mistrust of military leadersand politicians. He also feared the abuse ofscientific knowledge which could createdestructive weapons such as firebombs andatomic bombs.

Osaka bombing viewed from thewatchtower

Victims of the bombing

In July 1945, shortly before the end of thePacific War, Tezuka entered the specialmedical college of the Osaka ImperialUniversity. Due to the shortage of medicaldoctors at the time, the special medical collegesystem was established, by which somestudents entered the college straight fromjunior high school. Tezuka completed thismedical course in 1951, but chose to work as aprofessional manga writer rather than as adoctor. However, his study of medical sciencereinforced his respect for the life of every livingcreature that he had been nurturing from hisearly boyhood. Indeed, he maintained hisinterest in medical science throughout hislifetime, and in 1961, despite his extremelybusy work schedule, he submitted hisdissertation on “heteromorphic spermatid,” andgained a doctoral degree in medicine.

The observation of death in war and the revivalof life from the devastation of war infusedTezuka with a life-long motivation to createmanga. In a discussion of his work with thewell-known modern Japanese artist, YokooTadanori, Tezuka explained that he always felta strong vitality in the movement of the shapesin manga and animation, and he felt that tosome extent this was due to the fact that hisown life during the war had been completely

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lacking in vitality – he felt almost as if he weredead. When the war ended, he said, the feelingof revival in his own life was indescribable.Since then, he always found tremendousenergy in drawing manga.

An avid reader of novels, adventure stories, andtheater scripts, Tezuka was influenced by manyworld-renowned writers, in particular works byKarel Čapek such as R.U.R, War with Newtsand Power and Glory, H.G. Wells’ First Men inthe Moon, Goethe’s Faust, and Dostoevsky’sCrime and Punishment. Tezuka drew on theprofound humanity of these writers’ works tocreate his own stories.

Astro Boy: A Humane Robot

Many of Tezuka’s early works strongly reflecthis ideas about war, peace, and humanity,drawing on his life and death experience duringthe fire bombing. For example, Astro Boy wasnot originally a superhero robot, and neverbecame a superhero, but was a lonely and timidboy who was abandoned by the scientist whocreated him, Professor Tenma. Astro Boy wascreated as a substitute for the scientist’s realson who had died in a car accident. Yet, thescientist disposed of Astro Boy when herealized that a robot cannot replace a realperson.

It seems that the orphan Astro Boy evoked thenumerous war orphans marginalized by post-war Japanese society. When the manga of AstroBoy was published in 1951, six years after thewar, there were many war orphans throughoutJapan. Like them, Astro Boy had to gain his ownidentity, striving to be accepted by societythrough his contribution to the community.Astro Boy succeeded by acting as a peacemediator. This is why the title of the firstepisode of Astro Boy was Astro Boy Plays theRole of Ambassador (Atomu Taishi).

This manga tells of aliens living on anotherplanet who are forced to migrate to Earthfollowing the explosion of their planet. Thesespace refugees are identical to the humanbeings on Earth, except that the aliens havebigger ears. The people of Earth initiallywelcome their alien doubles, but soon, facedwith a food crisis, they begin fighting. Here wefind Tezuka’s criticism of war and conflictthrough his simple but profound question: howcan identical human beings fight and kill eachother. Through this manga we see thatTezuka’s concept of a “united Earth” is alreadytaking shape, a concept which he elaboratedmore comprehensively in later works. Tezukalearnt first-hand the absurdity of fightingbetween different races not only through the

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terrifying fire-bombings of World War II butalso through his encounter with violence duringthe Allied occupation immediately after thewar. He was bashed by an American soldierwhen he tried to stop the soldier from tearingup a picture he had drawn to sell to the GIs.

Bashed by an American G.I.

Astro Boy does not have a double among thealiens as he was artificially created, andtherefore can act as a mediator as he does notbelong either with the human beings or withthe aliens. Eventually he succeeds in makingpeace between the two races by arranging thathalf the humans together with half the alienmigrants will leave Earth to find another planetto live peacefully. It is interesting to note that,while many post-war monster-invasion stories,most notably represented by the film Godzilla,are constructed on the theme of the ultimatesurvival of the Japanese in confrontation withbizarre and threatening “others,” the maintheme of this first episode of Astro Boy is“reconciliation” between the two differentspecies. Indeed, in the following seventeenyear-long series of Astro Boy episodes,reconciliation remained the core theme of thesehumane robot stories, although the originaltheme of confrontation and reconciliation

between two different races developed into theconflict between humans and robots.

Astroboy

It is also interesting to emphasize that AstroBoy has the ability to think for himself and actsto fulfill human happiness. By contrast, otherpopular robot manga heroes that appeared inthe 1950s, for example Gigantor (Tetsujin 28-go) by Yokoyama Mitsuteru, simply obey theircontrollers who ultimately decide what is rightor wrong for their robots. Therefore, theserobots can easily switch from battling forjustice to being a villain and vice versa,depending on who controls them. Unlike theserobots which are s imply mechanicalconstructions, time and again Astro Boy is putin a quandary when other robots rebel against

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humans, as he often cannot rationally decidewhose side he should take. Yet inevitably, heeventually accomplishes his mission to fulfillhuman happiness, often by his own self-sacrifice through injury or destruction. Thus, inmany episodes, Astro Boy goes through cyclesof death and rebirth, being repeatedly repairedor rebuilt. Indeed, the last episode of the AstroBoy series, which concluded in March 1966,ended with Astro Boy’s ultimate self-sacrifice.In this story, Astro Boy is completely destroyedand cannot be repaired, after he tries to protectDr. Rosso who is attacked by the robot BlueKnight (Ao-kishi), the leader of the rebelliousrobots against humans. These robots areproducts of Dr. Rosso himself. Thus, unlikesuperheroes in American comics, Astro Boy isneither immortal nor invincible. It is notpossible for Astro Boy to become a superheroas he always suffers from the dilemma betweenself-consciousness as a robot and that as ahuman being. Although he remains foreveryoung and physically never ages, Astro Boy isjust like an ordinary human boy, who is alwaysimperfect and keeps learning from his ownexperiences and encounters with life’sdifficulties.

The crucial difference between Astro Boy andGigantor is the universal nature of Astro Boy.Astro Boy moves around the world, seekingpeace and justice. He transcends nationalityand ethnicity and freely crosses nationalborders. He eventually allies with anyone whostands for justice and fights against villainy,although he often finds it difficult to determinewhat is really just. On the other hand, in themanga stories of Gigantor, the good guysalways look Japanese, and they ride in planesor vehicles decorated with the Japanese flag,while the bad guys always look Caucasian. Inthe world of Astro Boy, conflicts usually do notoccur between different nations or differentraces, but between immoral adults andinnocent children. In this sense, this manga forchildren contains a profound criticism of adultactivities, most of which are closely intertwined

with such factors as politics, nationality,ethnicity, religion and racial and culturaldifferences. This universal aspect to AstroBoy’s character is undoubtedly the key reasonfor his immense, world-wide popularity.

Gigantor

It seems that Tezuka was clearly conscious ofthe famous SF story, R.U.R, written by KarelČapek in 1920, in which Čapek invented the

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word “robot” from the Czech word “robota”(meaning slave work), a word that quicklyspread all over the world through the Englishtranslation of this imaginative story. R.U.R.ends with the total annihilation of humankindas a result of the increased population of robotsproduced by humans themselves. One of theimportant questions that Čapek exploredthroughout h is l i fe was whether thedevelopment of science and technology wouldultimately bring happiness to human beings.Always sceptical about the benefit that sciencecan provide, he wondered if the abuse oftechnology would ultimately lead to theextinction of the human race. This question alsohaunted Tezuka, but unlike Čapek, he nevergave up hope that humans are basically wiseenough to utilize the knowledge of science andtechnology for their own happiness. However,through his manga, he constantly warned of theharm that abuse of such knowledge could bringnot only to humans, but also to the environmentand the many other creatures on this planet.

Karel Čapek’s R.U.R. robot

One question that remains is why Tezuka usedthe Japanese word “Atomu” (i.e. “Atom) for thename of this robot. The English name “AstroBoy” was adopted in 1963 when the first fewepisodes of the Japanese animation version of“Tetsuwan Atomu” (Atomu with Iron Arms)were televised in the United States. The firstepisode of Astro Boy, Astro Boy Plays the Roleof Ambassador (Atomu Taishi) never suggeststhat the energy source of the robot is nuclearpower, despite the name “Atom.” In laterepisodes, there are often references suggestingthat the energy source of the robot is nuclearpower, but it is never clearly explained hownuclear power is used to generate energy forthe robot. Some people suggest that Astro Boycarries a small nuclear reactor inside the body,but Tezuka himself never adopted this story. Inone of his autobiographies, he explains that hestumbled on the idea of using the word “Atom”for the name of the robot as the deadline forthe manuscript was coming closer and thepublisher was pressing him to urgently decideon the title for this manga. The early 1950s wasa time when “peaceful uses of nuclear energy”began to be promoted in various nations. Itseems that, even unconsciously, Tezuka wasinfluenced by this over-optimistic idea for theuse of nuclear energy, despite his deep fear ofthe abuse of scientific knowledge. In 1960, heused the word “Uran” (Uranium) for the newlycreated sister robot of Astro Boy, which impliesthat in the early 1960s, Tezuka was stillinfluenced by the idea of “peaceful uses ofnuclear energy”.

The Future World: A Warning about theAbuse of Science and Technology

In 1951, Tezuka published an epic mangaentitled The Future World (Kitarubeki Sekai),which sharply criticizes the nuclear arms racebetween the United States and the SovietUnion. In this manga, two hostile nations, theStar Nation and the Uranium Union have been

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conducting nuclear tests over many years. As aresult many animals and plants have beenaffected by radiation causing mutations. Onesuch mutation produces a breed of creatureswith superior intellect called the “Mufun,” whosense that the Earth will soon be covered inpoisonous gases and hence that all livingcreatures will be annihilated. Therefore theMufuns decide to leave the Earth in a largesatellite, taking a pair of every creature onEarth, as Noah did in his Ark. Meanwhile, thepeople of the Star Nation and the UraniumUnion are still busy developing nuclearweapons and eventually go to war. When bothnations are almost completely destroyed, theirleaders agree to restore peace. However, bythen the Earth is clouded with dark, poisonousgases. The leaders of the two nations embraceand joyfully proclaim “Peace, Peace has come,No more war on Earth,” “Long Live Humanbeings! Long Live World Culture!” as gasesbegin to shower down on them. The message ofthis manga is still relevant today as we fightwars all over the world, and globally spendmore than US$1.4 trillion annually on themilitary, at a time when our planet suffers aserious climate crisis due to global warming.

The Future World presents many otherelements of the problems it raises. In thismanga, the main characters are three children,a Mufun, a private detective called Hige Oyaji(meaning mustached old man), a biologist bythe name of Dr. Yamadano Kakashi, and therespective state leaders of the Star Nation andthe Uranium Union. The story of the conflict ofthe two nations unfolds as the relationshipsbetween these characters evolve. Thesecharacters watch as a vicious cycle is created,wherein critical events occur one after another,each commencing before the previous case issolved. As Japanese manga writer and criticNatsume Fusanosuke points out, this tale ofinternational conflict between two powerfulnations is complexly comprised of many storiesof personal relationships among the maincharacters. Furthermore, international conflict

is constructed as an important element of thestory of cultural and intellectual differencesbetween humans and Mufuns. Eventually,readers find that all these stories are presentedonly as small parts of the grand tale of thecosmos. We find that the conflict between thetwo nations is meaningless in the context of theconflict between humans and Mufuns, andsimilarly that the antagonism between thehumans and Mufuns is futile at a time whenEarth and everything on it is under threat.

The Future World is based on the logic ofrelativity and shows that there is no such thingas “absolute justice” in this world, in particularfrom a universal viewpoint. In fact, through hisentertaining and imaginative manga, Tezukatried to convey that everything is conditionedby its relationship with other things, so there isno simple and straightforward answer toanything. In other words, every existence,including that of human beings, is conditionedby its relationship with other existences, andnothing exists without this relationship ofrelativity. Hence, unlike many other children’smanga stories, no superhero fighting for justiceand peace appears. The story never ends withthe absolute victory of a superhero. However,Tezuka did not want to end this manga with atragedy of mankind. Thus, he let the poisonousgases undergo a drastic chemical reaction andturn into harmless oxygen, just as they wereshowering down on the Earth, allowinghumanity to survive. Even so, he warns readersthrough Dr. Yamadano’s last statement –‘Someday, superior creatures may conquerhumans in a similar way to which, once upon atime, we humans conquered the apes. This isthe law of nature. If we wish to live under thelaw of nature and survive, we must stopfighting each other.’ Tezuka inserted similarwarnings at the end of other such epic mangathat he produced in the late 1940s and early1950s such as Metropolis and Zero-Man: forexample, ‘Some day, human beings maydestroy themselves because of the science thatthey over-develop.’

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In comparing Karel Čapek’s novel War withNewts and The Future World, we find astrikingly similar logic of relativity. In bothstories, a species superior to humans –salamanders in War with Newts and Mufuns inThe Future World – appear and eventuallyeverything on Earth is faced with the danger oftotal destruction. In both stories, humans aretreated as one of many living species on Earth,and fighting among humans themselvesseriously endangers the planet. Then again, theending of Tezuka’s story still gives hope forultimate human survival, while Čapek’s storyends with a prediction of fatal tragedy forhuman beings. Despite this difference, there isno doubt that Tezuka’s early work was heavilyinfluenced by Čapek’s scepticism towardsscience and human behavior.

Epic Manga on Nuclear Issues

In 1953, Tezuka published an epic mangaentitled Point X in the Pacific (Taiheiyo XPointo), another critique of the nuclear armsrace. Two hostile nuclear powers, Cosmopolitanand Eurasia, are frantically developing moreand more powerful weapons. EventuallyCosmopolitan produces a new bomb called the“Oxygen Bomb,” which is far more powerfulthan a nuclear bomb. Despite world-wide

protest against the test of this new weapon, thegovernment of Cosmopolitan decides to carryout the test at “Point X” in the Pacific,removing all local inhabitants of islands nearthe test site to more remote locations. When anold man called Hige Oyaji (meaning mustachedold man), an ex-thief who now lives as anordinary citizen, hears this news, he decides todestroy the weapon before it is tested. With hisson’s assistance he succeeds. In this manga,too, it is not a superhero but an old man with acriminal record and his son, who fight againstthe madness of politicians and militarists.

Remarkably, Tezuka wrote this manga a yearbefore the United States tested the HydrogenBomb on Bikini Atoll in the Southwest Pacific.Although the U.S. government started nucleartests on Bikini in July 1946, less than a yearafter the atomic bombing of Hiroshima andNagasaki, the nuclear test issue did not becomea m a j o r p o l i t i c a l i s s u e i n J a p a n o rinternationally until a Japanese fishing boatcalled Lucky Dragon # 5 was covered byradioactive fallout and its crew irradiated as aresult of the first U.S. Hydrogen Bomb test,Operation Bravo, near Bikini in March 1954.Aside from Tezuka, hardly any writers in themanga world took up the nuclear issue as themain theme of their work at this time.

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Irradiated Japanese fisherman from the1954 Hyrdogen Bomb test at Bikini having

contaminated hair shaved

One of the first to do so was Shirato Sampei,whose A Disappearing Girl (Kieyuku Shojo) waspublished in 1959, five years after the LuckyDragon incident, when the Japanese anti-nuclear movement was already strong andwidespread. This is a story about a young girlin Hiroshima who loses her entire family due toradiation caused by the atomic bombing. Sheherself becomes sick from exposure toradiation, and as a result of deep-rooted socialdiscrimination against hibakusha (A-bombsurvivors) she becomes homeless. In the forestwhere she wanders about, she meets a Koreanman who was brought to Japan during the warand forced to work at a Japanese coal mine.They live happily together for a while until theKorean man is arrested by the police and puton a ship back to Korea. Escaping from theship, he returns to the forest only to find thatthe girl is already dead. The main theme of thism o v i n g m a n g a i s s o c i a l a n d r a c i a ldiscrimination rather than nuclear issues. Itfocuses on the problems of Japanese society,and, unlike Tezuka’s manga, does not offer aglobal perspective on nuclear issues.

Shirato Sanpei’s Disappearing Girl

It is well known that the film Godzilla,produced at the end of 1954, was inspired bythe Lucky Dragon incident. The following year,Kurosawa Akira, who was also influenced bythe H-bomb test, produced the film I Live inFear (Ikimono no Kiroku). Both films presentthe Japanese as victims of nuclear weapons.

Godzilla

In fact, many films featuring atomic bombingsor nuclear tests were produced following theend of the US occupation in 1952, such asChildren of the Atomic Bomb (Genbaku no Ko)directed by Shindo Kaneto. Without exception,these films depict Japan and the Japanese asvictims. In the 1970s, Nakazawa Keiji publishedBarefoot Gen (Hadashi no Gen), an epic mangaabout the difficult life of a boy and his family,some of whom survived the atomic bombing ofHiroshima. The translation of this manga hasbeen widely circulated in the English-speakingworld and remains popular both within andoutside of Japan. However, as Tezuka oncecommented, the main weight of Nakazawa’smanga is the deep love and strong bonds of afamily who experienced an unimaginable

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calamity, rather than the issue of nuclearweapons as such. In this manga, too, theJapanese are presented as victims of the war,although rather than being portrayed aspassive victims, they strenuously act toovercome the difficulties of life in post-warJapan.

Victims of the bomb, Barefoot Gen

In 1955, Tezuka produced one other epicmanga dealing with nuclear issues, The Age ofthe Deluge (Daikozui Jidai), in which hepresented Japan as a nuclear power. Thismanga tells of a disaster in which Japan’ssecret nuclear arsenal built near the North Polesuddenly explodes, causing a deluge ofseawater to descend on Japan. As a result, onethird of Japan sinks under water. We seethrough this manga that while most Japanesepeople were concerned only with their ownvictimization through the use of nuclearweapons, Tezuka did not hesitate to imply thatJapan too could become a nuclear nation andconsequently bring disaster on the naturalenvironment as well as on human beings, evenwithout engaging in warfare. Tezuka obviouslyproduced this manga to voice his concern thatwith the U.S. military using Japanese bases tofight the Korean War, Japan too might become

aggressors. In this manga, again, it is a boywho tries to fight against the madness of adultswho plan to produce weapons of massdestruction.

Gekiga Manga and Heroes

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, at the heightof the Vietnam War, Tezuka produced severalexcellent gekiga manga (manga for adults)featuring the Asia Pacific War, such as ThePaper Fortress (Kami no Toride), Zephyrus,Canon, A Crashed Fighter Plane (Tsuirakuki),and The Grand General Goes to the Forest (DaiShogun Mori e Iku). There is no doubt thatTezuka wrote these manga imagining what theVietnamese were suffering under heavy U.S.aerial bombing. In 1987, many years after theVietnam War and two years before his death,Tezuka continued to use Astro Boy to makereaders of his manga think about the effects ofbombing civilians in Vietnam. In Astro Boy,Past and Present Stories (Atomu KonjyakuMonogatari) published in 1987, Astro Boytravels back almost 50 years from 2017 toVietnam in 1969, and stops the bombing byB-52 bombers, saving the lives of a newly bornbaby and his mother in the jungle.

In the 1970s, he also produced other gekigamanga, in particular the series Black Jack,featuring the psychological trauma and seriousphysical injuries experienced by Americansoldiers in Vietnam. Black Jack is a series ofmedical dramas that Tezuka started inNovember 1973 and ended in October 1983,producing a total of 230 short manga storieswhich fully utilize his wide medical knowledge.The main character Black Jack is an unlicensedbut superbly gifted surgeon. Again and againBlack Jack miraculously saves seriously illpatients and those on the verge of death,utilizing his surgical technique - but he alwaysdemands an outrageous price for his operationto rich clients.

In the Black Jack series, Tezuka includedseveral stories focusing on the Vietnam War.

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For example in Anaphylaxis, published inDecember 1973, Black Jack is asked to save thelife of George, son of a U.S. officer, ColonelMason. George has been struck in the heart byshrapnel on a battlefield in Vietnam andbrought to the hospital at Yokota Base. He isanaphylactic, and develops a severe cramp inreaction to the anesthesia. Therefore BlackJack tries electric anesthesia, and the operationsucceeds. Nevertheless, George commitssuicide when his father forces him to go back toVietnam and show his bravery as a U.S. soldier.

Another Black Jack story entitled Captain Devil,published in October 1975, is a kind of analogyof the March 1968 My Lai Massacre committedin Vietnam by a unit of US Army, CharlieCompany. In this story, Lieutenant Kenneth is acaptain of the Army unit who burned innocentcivilian villagers to death in Vietnam. He showsnot the slightest acknowledgement orrepentance for what he had done. evenboasting that killing civilians is simplyunavoidable during wartime. He visits BlackJack and asks him to remove the bullets lodgedin his brain. Black Jack accepts the request, oncondition that Vietnamese child refugees fromthe village where Lieutenant Kenneth’s unitcommitted the massacre are present at theoperation. While he is on the operation table,he is struck with terror. The operation issuccessful, but he becomes insane and killshimself accidentally.

From the latter half of the 1970s until the endof his life, many of Tezuka’s stories addressedthe question of the duality of human nature –the co-existence of good and evil – and how tosolve various problems arising from this innatecontradiction, the most serious of which is war.Two of the finest of these works are MW,published in 1976, and Adolf, published in1983. While MW depicts the madness of peoplewho deal with weapons of mass destructionsuch as chemical weapons, Adolf is a long andcomprehensive war story about three men,each named “Adolf”: Adolf Hitler, a Jewish boy

living in Kobe, and a boy born to a Germanfather and Japanese mother. This storyaddresses many important issues such as racialpurity, ethnicity, personal identity, nationalism,s t a t e i deo l ogy , m i l i t a r y v i o l ence ,dehumanization, and political corruption. Thefather of the Jewish boy is killed by theJapanese-German boy, who becomes a Naziofficer during World War II. Yet after the war,the Jewish boy migrates to Israel and becomesa brutal oppressor of Palestinians.

Adolf

In the early 1980s, at a time when few Japanesewere paying attention to the Palestinianproblem, Tezuka was already introducing thisissue to manga readers, clearly pointing outthat war can make the same person a victim aswell as an assailant. The story is cleverly woveninto actual historical events, so that readerslearn much about World War II while beingenthralled by a fascinating plot. The finalmessage that readers learn from thiscaptivating epic manga is that every nationclaims to be acting justly in order to justify itsconduct, yet the result often turns out to begross “injustice” for many people, includingcitizens of that nation-state itself – an irony ofpolitics.

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As already mentioned, hardly any superheroesappear in Tezuka’s manga. Even the saint-likeBuddha is described as a person who strugglesto painfully overcome various humanweaknesses and defects in order to achieve hisgoal. In the 14 volume long epic manga entitledBuddha, Buddha has personal flaws, unlike aninnately perfect figure such as Jesus Christ.Tezuka’s manga contain no superheroes likeSuperman, Spiderman and Batman, the mostpopular characters in American comics. TheseAmerican superheroes never make mistakes ofjudgment concerning justice, morality andethics. They always fight for the noble causesof justice and peace, and invariably accomplishtheir grand missions to defeat villains and evil,eliminating one danger after another with theirincredible powers.

Buddha

Yet, these superheroes suddenly becomeutterly powerless when a real catastrophicevent occurs, like the September 11 terroristattack. This is because the world of theimagination in which these superheroes live iscompletely detached from the real world, whilstthe imaginative world of Tezuka’s manga isclosely and firmly connected with the vital andcomplex problems of the real world. Thus,

Superman is at a loss for words and simplyholds his head in his hands, looking down atthe ground in front of the debris of the TwinTowers. A cartoon published in late 2001 showsa tiny figure of Superman standing and saying‘wow’ in front of the oversized figures of theSeptember 11 rescue volunteers – a fire fighter,policeman, nurse and doctor – clearlyindicating that the real heroes are theseworkers and volunteers, not Superman.Similarly, after the September 11 attack, theonly th ing that Sp iderman cou ld doimmediately was to hopelessly stand at “groundzero” site and mutter that we can nevercomprehend the world of terrorists. In fact, thefirst Hollywood movie of Spiderman was beingfilmed shortly before the September 11 attack,in which Spiderman makes a huge webbetween the Twin Towers. Before the moviewas released, all images of the World TradeCentre buildings were erased using computertechnology. How could Spiderman jump aroundthe Twin Towers, despite the fact that he couldnot save even a single person trapped underthe debris after these buildings collapsed?

I wonder, were he still alive at the time, howTezuka would have reacted through his mangato this astonishing terrorist attack, in whichalmost three thousand civilians were killedindiscriminately. In Tezuka’s manga there is nospace for superheroes, simply because hismanga world is a complex one, in which thereis no absolute justice or absolute righteousness.In his imaginative manga world, if any of hischaracters yearn for justice and peace, theyhave to face the complexities of human society,i n p a r t i c u l a r t h e v a r i o u s f o r m s o f“confrontation.”

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Tezuka’s characters surround Astro Boy

Conclusion

Tezuka’s epic manga are dynamic as thestorylines always revolve around confrontation:powerful nations versus powerful nations,humans versus machines, the primitive versusthe modern, organizations versus individuals,idealism versus realism, science versus ethics,and so on. These confrontations take the formof universal problems such as imperialism,dictatorship, colonization, war, genocide, andbureaucracy. Yet, these adult themes arealways clearly presented and simplified so as tobe readily understood by children. Indeed, thevast volume of his manga work can be called “aceremony of innocence,” an expression that theIrish poet, William Butler Yeats, used todescribe children in 1920.

In this way, from the very beginning of hiscareer as a manga writer immediately after thewar, until the end of his life, Tezuka’sfascinating vision and powerful imaginationallowed him to maintain a profound humanismwith a global perspective, which was largelyunaffected by the narrow-minded Japaneseview of war victimhood. It is apparent that hiswork stands at the opposite end of thespectrum from recent works of nationalisticJapanese war manga like those of KobayashiYoshinori . How did Tezuka gain suchhumanism? How can we acquire humanism anddisseminate it as a moral foundation forsociety? These questions should be taken up byanyone, regardless of race or nationality, whoreads Tezuka’s vivid manga.

Yuki Tanaka is Research Professor, HiroshimaPeace Institute, and a coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal. He is the author most recentlyof Yuki Tanaka and Marilyn Young, eds.,Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth CenturyH i s t o r y(http://www.amazon.com/dp/1595585478/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) as well as of Japan’s ComfortWomen and Hidden Horrors: Japanese WarCrimes in World War II. He wrote this articlefor The Asia-Pacific Journal.

Recommended citation: Yuki Tanaka, "War andPeace in the Art of Tezuka Osamu: Thehumanism of his epic manga," The Asia-PacificJournal, 38-1-10, September 20, 2010.

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