I'm back in my hometown and I can finally take a look at the last Amazon order I received almost one month ago. The Art of Osamu Tezuka is a gorgeous book by Helen McCarthy that tells the story of Osamu Tezuka, a Japanese manga and animation artist known as "the god of manga" and considered by many as the Walt Disney of Japan. Tezuka marked a turning point in Japanese manga and anime culture as Katsuhiro Otomo forewords in the book:
It is important to understand that Osamu Tezuka is not the founder of Japanese animation.
There were animators in Japan before him, as well as those working at the same time. Tezuka's work, however, revolutionized the industry by transferring recognized cinematic forms of expression from the silver screen to both his manga and his anime in order to make his stories more appealing to his (initially young) audience. In Tezuka's anime especially, camera conceits such as close-ups, pan/tilt, and so forth contributed to the creation of a realistic feel to his animated features, though initially they caused all sorts of production problems. He also played with varied lighting to enhance mood.
By Tezuka's time, manga and anime had ceased to be the throwaway items they had been before the war, and it is Tezuka's greatest success that he recognized the need to inject wider perspectives and social awareness into his work. This was important after the war, when Disney animation was contributing to the anti -Japanization of Japanese popular culture, and U.S. -supported reconstruction dominated Japan. Today, much of the manga and anime business stands far removed from the fragile system into which Tezuka breathed life, and from some perspectives, imagination seems to have largely given over to the sort of routine against which Tezuka railed. However, there still remain strands of the Master's imagination woven throughout the islands of Japan, and I have faith that even today many of his professional descendents remain true to the standards by which he built an industry.
It is no exaggeration to say that it is largely due to the genius of Tezuka, in those formative years of the country's reconstruction, that Japanese animation and manga have developed into a form largely without comparison in the world. Influenced by the innovations of Disney but guided by his own emotional compass, Tezuka did not demand absolute rigidity of his staff, but he allowed them to explore their own creative processes and unique styles. These were animators who would later go on to create an entire industry, impassioned by their beloved teacher.
Katsuhiro Otomo is the creator of AKIRA, the seminal manga and movie
In its more than 272 pages McCarthy depicts Tezuka's life and work with pictures of all its creative processes, from sketches to drawings, from animation films to memorabilia. A great retrospective work that comes with a DVD as an extra with a 45 minutes long NHK documentary never before released in English, titled The Secret of Creation, in which we got immersed in Tezuka's daily life following him to his remote studio (where not even editors are allowed), to his family house and inside his Mushi Production company where all his animation productions come to life.
For the ones that are not familiar with Osamu Tezuka, to understand his influence it's recommended to visit the website kimbawlion.com or take a look at the images that are collected here on the left. Even the images speak for themselves, what we see here is an early work of Tezuka, the manga Jungle Emperor (ジャングル大帝 Jungle Taite) also known as Kimba The White Lion that was created back in the fifties and serialized in Japan in Manga Shōnen magazine and later became the first color animated television series created in the country.
On the other hand we see, The Lion King is a Walt Disney production from 1994 and how it clearly 'takes inspiration' from Tezuka's piece. The Lion King is still to this day the highest grossing animation film made with traditional 2D animation and it seats in the fifth position in the overall animation ranking, behind 3D animation titles by Pixar.
JUMPING by Osamu Tezuka
Jumping (1984) is one of those art house films that were produced at Mushi Pro. I first saw this piece in the Spanish La2 channel, TV documentary program "la noche Tematica" special issue about Japanese manga and anime, back in 1998. This film together with other shorts is available on DVD.
The Art Of Osamu Tezuka
Helen McCarthy (Author), Osamu Tezuka (Illustrator), Katsuhiro Otomo (Foreword)Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Abrams ComicArts; Har/DVD edition (October 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0810982498
