The Secret of the Wednesday’s Haul

For the story of Buddha, Tezuka’s tale begins years before Buddha is born, focusing on Chapra, a slave who rises above his life station wanting to exact revenge against an army general who actually adopts Chapra. Yeah, it’s a bit soap operaish but Tezuka does a fantastic job balancing the silly (really, these animals are all right out of any Disney film and I expect them to begin singing and dancing,) the poignant (there’s a lot of heartbreak in this book) and the spiritual (really, a book about Buddha is spiritual?) into an entertaining and wonderful book.

Earlier this year, I got my “official” introduction to Tezuka thanks to Vertical’s Apollo’s Song, a trippy, uncontrolled and energetic mess of a story. Mess may be too harsh but for as wonderful as Apollo’s Song is, Tezuka seemed to let the story control him instead of being in charge of it himself. It starts off with a race and only gets faster and wilder through the whole book. Buddha V1, which he began in 1973, is more controlled and shows off Tezuka as a master storyteller. At odd moments throughout the book, he throws in weird modern references, particularly with a couple of scenes where he inserts himself only for one-panel cameos and points them out to the reader. These moments should knock the reader right out of the story but Tezuka sets up an understanding with the reader that he’s telling the spirit of the story without having to tell a truly faithful interpretation of the story.

Not that anything that Tezuka throws in seems fundamentally wrong. The little liberties he takes with the story elements don’t alter the essence of the story but they allow some of Tezuka’s playfulness to come out and be put on display. And that playfulness is barely contained by the pages or panels. To show characters throwing angry fits, Tezuka shows them breaking the sides of the panels or running into them, making them for a brief moment physically part of the story. It’s jarring but it also helps show off the emotion and power of these characters– they break through the page.

I know that this book is actually decades old but it’s already landed a spot on my 2007 Best Of post. Of his (admittedly limited) works that I’ve read so far, Buddha V1 demonstrates why Tezuka is held is such high esteem as a cartoonist and as a storyteller.

Technorati Tags: Osamu Tezuka, Buddha, manga