This Disney connection is interesting to me because my animation teacher (and most other people in the traditional animation industry when I went to school) seemed to dismiss manga and anime techniques as unworthy of attention or study. Every so often, I'd run across his works in book stores and flip quickly through. The art inside reminded of old school Disney cartoons of Popeye and Mickey Mouse. After a brief glance, his books went right back on the shelf as the traditional animation techniques and style of Disney what I studied and was familiar with and I liked manga and anime because of it was so different.
As the years went by, I never bothered read or watched any of his works until I saw the live action Dororo last year. If you've never seen Dororo, it's one of those movies you watch with a sense of wtf? I was startled by it. I watched it and thought, 'I have no idea what I saw, and I don't know if I want to know'.
When I was in Kyoto last year, at JR Kyoto station, there was an exhibit of Tezuka's works. Statues of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion led me to the Osamu Tezuka World exhibit. I paid to see a clip of one of his animated TV shows (don't know the name) and found it a psychedelic experience. It had bright colours, cute characters, and a mish-mash of myths from different cultures thrown in. I remember sphinxes, time travel, a city in the future, a devil, and I swear there was a unicorn in there somewhere. I left the theater once again scratching my head and going wtf?
Now, I had to know what this is all about.
From my brief glances at Tezuka's works in manga form, they were nothing like I'd seen expressed in anime or live action form. I finally picked up Dororo Vol 1-3 from my local library last week. When read this book, I realized that I've doing what I always got so annoyed at people around me for doing; dismissing a manga because of appearances.
The theme of Dororo is that 'no one is born whole' and the story really express that theme. The premise of Dororo is that a father, in return for power, gives up his unborn child as payment to 48 demons. The child is born without any sort of limbs except a body and head. When he grows up, to get back his limbs, he journeys to kill the 48 demons. The crazy part is that since his whole body was fashioned for him, his prosthetic arms detach to reveal swords, and that's how he fights.
The art-style is cute but the subject matter is pretty gruesome; you see children get shot full of arrows, people starving to death, and lives of full of misery in a backdrop of war. Yet there's a humor, hope and perseverance through it all.
I am now on a quest to read all of Tezuka's works. I found the end of Dororo very unsatisfying, but I hope to startled again by his other works. Onward to Buddha! :)
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