Osamu tezuka

Osamu Tezuka (手塚 治虫, Tezuka Osamu^?, Toyonaka, November 3, 1928-Tokyo, February 9, 1989) was a Japanese mangaka and animator, popularly known in his country as "the god of manga" (漫画の神様, manga no kamisama^?), because thank you His work expanded and massively spread the reading and consumption of manga as a means of popular entertainment, resulting in manga having a profound influence on post-war Japanese society. His new way of developing and creating manga, based on the cinematography techniques of the time and animation geniuses such as Walt Disney, reconsidered the traditional creation of comics that barely occupied rigid panels and few frames with short stories. self-conclusive to be replaced by the so-called story manga, or long-lasting manga with a much more elaborate and complex plot.

Thus, this new technique allowed him to brilliantly adapt the great masterpieces of world literature to cartoons as he did with Crime and Punishment, or to be inspired by them to create his own adventures as his first smash hit The New Treasure Island (Shin Takarajima).

Such was the impact of his creations and his works that to this day the basis of his style endures in the new Japanese authors and the characters that he gave birth to with his pen continue to live in the popular culture of Japan, where the vast majority of his works can be found in bookstores. In addition, his sleeves have been translated into dozens of languages, including Spanish.The tenderness and deep and sincere humanism that he imprinted on his characters have left an indelible mark, making him a universal author capable of transcending cultures.. Even the disproportionately large eyes that are so characteristic of animation and manga (particularly shoujo) are a Tezuka legacy.

Biography

Osamu Tezuka in 1953.

Tezuka was born in the city of Toyonaka, Osaka. Enthusiastic about the animation genre, he began drawing while still a child. The horrors of World War II also marked his sensitivity and from the very beginning he tried to convey optimistic, humanitarian and environmental messages with his drawings.

His first important job was done at the age of 20. It was the series Shin Takarajima ("The new Treasure Island"), but most of its great and famous characters did not appear until the 1950s, such as Jungle Taitei ("Kimba the White Lion"), Tetsuwan Atom ("Astroboy"), and Ribbon No Kishi ("The Knight Princess"), considered the first manga of the shojo genre in history. The success continued in the following decades, with series such as Hi no Tori ("Phoenix", 1954), Black Jack (1973-84), Buddha (1972-83) and Adolf (1983), taking a profound turn with the culmination of the MW series (1976-1978), in the one that addressed very infrequent topics in the manga of the time, such as homosexuality, political corruption or chemical weapons.

Osamu Tezuka passed away on February 9, 1989 from stomach cancer at the age of 60, practically a month after the death of Emperor Hirohito, thus leaving unfinished the works he was dedicated to then, Ludwig B and Neo Faust. Considered by many his masterpiece, Hi no Tori , was left unfinished with Tezuka's death.

Shortly after his death, some of the largest Japanese newspapers called for the Nobel Prize in Literature to be awarded to him, but it was refused. No one argued with him; however, the acclaim of him as "the god of manga", thus perpetuating his influence on generations of readers and authors, and on the history and culture of an entire country as a whole. Since 1997, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Award has been held annually, in honor of Tezuka's contribution to modern manga, an award where those mangaka who follow Tezuka's vision are awarded.

Career

It is estimated that he made approximately 700 manga (he carried out the scripts for several manga simultaneously and in a short period of time, since he was a prolific mangaka who was discredited by some of his peers, but whose works far exceeded their quality), he drew more than 150,000 pages and made more than 60 films in 35 years. Tezuka's works are numerous, but the two most famous and elaborate are Buddha and Phoenix.

Buddha is a work published in eight volumes that recreates in a documented but very personal way, the life of Siddartha Gautama Buddha, the first man to reach enlightenment and founder of Buddhism. In this masterpiece, Tezuka manages to expose the reader to some of the most serious and profound bases of Buddhism, masterfully weaving together the anecdotes surrounding the life of the Buddha from his birth to his death.

Phoenix is, on the other hand, Tezuka's most intimate work. Although he was unable to finish it before his death, the prestige of this Tezuka work has increased exponentially over the years. In Phoenix the eternal search of the human being for immortality is recreated through a series of stories that take place in different times with civilizations that are born and perish. The fifth volume, Ho-ō (Karma), is considered the heart of this work, where the progressive transformation of a criminal and his abandonment of evil is masterfully captured. Recently, the Japanese NHK has published this work on DVD after 40 years of working with the latest digital image and sound advances, also supported by a soundtrack performed by the philharmonic orchestra of the Japanese public channel. This animation has an English translation but it is not yet available in Spanish.

Among the lesser-known works of the Japanese genius, it is worth noting for their beauty Tomorrow the Birds, an apocalyptic ode to the end of the human race at the hands of overdeveloped birds and Ode to Kirihito in which Tezuka guides through one of his favorite scenarios, the world of medicine, science and humanism. In The Tree That Gives Shade (Hidamari no Ki, 1981), he addresses the final period of the shogunate (1850-1870), taking as a common thread the adventures of his medical ancestors, who had restricted the exercise of Western "Dutch" medicine, as opposed to official "evidentialist" medicine.

Some of his most notable works include:

• 1947: New Treasure Island
• 1950: Jungle Taitei (Kimba, the White Lion/The Emperor of the Jungle)
• 1952: Tetsuwan Atom (Astroboy)
• 1953: Ribon no Kishi)
• 1965: The 3 space
• 1967: Hi no Tori (Phoenix))
• 1967: Dororo
• 1970: Kirihito Sanka (Oda a Kihirito))
• 1970: Apollo no Uta (Apolo song)
• 1971: Marvelous Melmo
• 1971: Alabaster
• 1972: Buddha
• 1973: Black Jack
• 1976: Unico
• 1977: Jetter Mars)
• 1982: Adolf

Tezuka and the cinema

Tezuka was also one of the pioneers of Japanese animation, but before 1963 he failed to make versions of his manga. He created his own company, Mushi Productions, with which he created Japan's first cartoon series: Tetsuwan Atom (& # 34; Astroboy & # 34;), which featured two more versions in later years. Then came Jungle Taitei ("Kimba, the White Lion") and Ribbon no Kishi ("The Princess Knight"). All of them were great successes, but this did not prevent his production company, after repeated financial crises, from being forced to close its animation studio in the mid-1970s.

In 1965, after reading the manga Astro Boy, he was invited by Stanley Kubrick to be the art director of 2001, A Space Odyssey. Offer that he rejected not wanting to move to England for a long time.