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Author's note - This piece was originally submitted to the Turin based sf fanzine "Klaatu" in November 1992, and was published in February 1993 as part of a special feature on science fiction animation and comics; it is reprinted here with some minor modifications, a few retrospective notes and with the full suite of illustrations as originally intended (as many were cut for publication).
Not all the graphics are up at the moment, as we're working on the format.
... and with such a title, we could be likely to go on discussing the late lamented Isaac Asimov.
But with the simple addition of the adjective "Giant", our subject suddenly becomes clearer.Presenting a short overview of science fiction in Japanese cartoons is not an easy task. First of all, the vastity of the genre is such that requires a selection.
And therefore carries a responsibility.In the following pages, we'll try to cover the basic science-fiction themes as they are portrayed in Manga, trying to stick as closely as possible to a general chronological timescale, and touching upon the more representative, historical authors. And ye, we'll also try not to be conditioned by this general structure.
We'll also try to ignore the conditioning coming from the fact that we're handling semi-mithological entities, so that some fans could feel offended by less than an all-out celebration.The choice of a few foundamental authors is however a need, as we can't consider a comic book as just plot and plot alone: with just a pair of exceptions, all the authors featured in this piece possess a very personal and highly identifiable "hand" - here represented by a selected picture or, whenever possible, by a whole page.
Ironically, despite the premise and the title, it's with a robot that we have to start our story. Tetsuwan Atom, a.k.a. Astroboy for the western markets, born in the dim and distant 1952 by the extremely prolific hand of Osamu Tezuka (Japan's Walt Disney), holds a few track records that are worth mentioning: he is the protagonist of the first science fiction serial ever published in Japan, and of the first animated series ever, and has been imitated, reproduced and pirated worldwide (USA, Europe, Argentina, Peru, Taiwan etc). Tetsuwan Atom tin toys are avidly collected and some are rumored to be valued in thousands of dollars.
The series (both comic and animation) follows the classical theme of the robot (but "android" would be much more correct) created "to serve and protect" by the by-the-numbers genius scientist, and has the mechanical kid facing, thanks to the usual collection of X-ray eyes, superuman strenght and rocket-powered fligth, the classical routine problems popular at the time of pulp magazines: natural and man-made catastrophes, evil geniuses, totalitarian governments. Quite a bit like Superman did on the other side of the ocean, really, with maybe a wee little touch of sciencitif dignity added.
Tezuka again is responsible for the Black Jack character and series; using his own medical studies as a source of inspiration (Tezuka had a M.D. degree from Osaka University), the author portrays the adventures of a maverick doctor, outlawed because of his unhortodox experimental methods and more than willing, for a price, to perform the most daring operations or to elaborate the most amazing drugs. In the whole Tezuka production (an estimated 150.000 pages produced in the first 40 years of activity), Black Jack is probably the only character that never received a serial animated treatment - even if he appears in many animated features (as Tezuka was used to employ his characters as "actors" in his feature films). The original Black Jack comicbooks are another much sought-after collector's item.
[Never Say Never: Black Jack was made into a series of OAVs a few months after this piece was published. Teaches me right....]
A robot created to defend humanity, and provided with four separate aspects to better face different menaces, is also the first creature of Go Nagai, Kisaragi Honey (Cutie Honey), first appeared in 1972 . In this case, however, the author, sticking to the "sex & violence" angle that he'll develop ad abundantia (and ad nauseam) in the following years, is much more interested in showing us his mechanical heroine without clothes, or in exploring the perverted practices of his bad guys (that use a Catholic School as a cover) than he is in keeping up scientific dignity or narrative coherence. A rather unpleasant and grotesque drawing style does not help he whole. The series has been revived in the early '90s, cleaning up the atwork and pushig onward the internal timeline of the series, to a more than discreet success.
The android built by an eccentric scientist will break records again only in 1980, with young Akira Toriyama's Dr Slump & Aralechan series; the comic was transformed into an animated series just five weeks after his first appearnce (Tetsuwan Atom took eleven years to take the same step).
In this case, however, intents are clearly satirical (including Atom in the target list) and slapstick dominates the series, not without an overall coherence and style, chronicling the adventures of the eponymous Dr. Slump. To ascience fiction fan, Dr. Slump will show many similarities with Henry Kuttner's Dr. Gallagher (first published, incredibly, in Atom's 1952) and even more with Thorne Smith's Dr. Hunter Hawk ("The Nightlife of the Gods", 1919-1931). Because of Toriyama's personal drawing style, caricature-like and thick with "useless" details, and of the storylines that normally verge on the elementary or the absurd, Dr. Slump is often labelled as "kid's stuff" by some superficial readers.
According to some critics, Dr. Slump was the last series to hit the big time "by sheer chance", as opposed to the more calculated products built just to break in the market as fast as possible. Certainly, the impromptu success of Akira Toriyama convinced many publishers that "the coming thing" could be found easily by scanning the semi-professional scene, thus giving space on the page to a younger generation of cartoonists.
Meanwhile, in 1964, another "foundamental" author, Shotaro Ishimori - another record-breaker with 500 pages produced monthly, creator of many admired historical stories and with a drawing style easily identifiable as the model for many of the youngest generation cartoonists - publishes the Cyborg 009 series, deploying a team of nine superspecialized cyborgs fighting secret organizations taken straight from Bond movies and ofen masquerading as new religions. The series (that will be animated in '68 and again in '69) is scientifically not without dignity, and tries to analyze the man-machine relationship within a single individual in an intelligent way, even if the psichological side rarely unbalances the story. For lovers of the weird detail, Ishimori changed his name in Ishinomori at the end of the '70s, as the former number of sillabes (four) was considered unlucky, and had a pyramid installed on the rof of his house, where he can go and meditate on future works.
According to Theodore Sturgeon's famous maxim, 90% of it is rubbish. The rule applies of course to Japanese comics too, even if just a few fans are willing to admit it. None of them has any problem, however, in recognizing the truth in Sturgeon's words when the discussion comes to, ironically, the most popular and original (having little to none literary or filmic ancestor) subgenre in the feld: giant robots. Giant robots have been (fun packed) rubbish ever since theirdebut, with Tetsujin 28-go, a larger scale, radio-controlled contemporary of Tetsuwan Atom, and vaguely traceable back to the badly drawn Scientific Warrior from a few propaganda sketches dating from 1943. Dumpimg the radio-control for a cockpit did not help much. Like many action-oriented stories, the result is often pretty repetitive, and it depends on the author's ability to weave a "good yarn" if the product will finally raise over the faceless masses.
The most famous author is Go Nagai, he of Mazinger and Grandizer fame, and of the already mentioned Cutie Honey. He was the first to get to Italy with its animated features, back in 1978, and is at the origin of a true cult (cunningly alimented by smart publisers), out of which he is generally ignored, given a wide berth or ferociously lampooned. Not an easy task, considering the self-mocking stance that Go Nagai usually adopts in his work.
The enemy usually comes from outer space, like in all good traditional sf, or sometimes from the interior of our own world (which might look like a Pellucidar ripoff, but is really a reference to Japanese mithology); the enemy is usually bad to the bone, with worthles motivations and incoherent modus operandi. As for scientific rigour, much of the giant robot repertory should probably be labelled as fantasy.[A bit harsh, in retrospective. I'll have to expand on the subject anyway...]There's no denying that part of it can be quite gud fun, but that's not enough for the purposes of this discussion. But let's not forget Theodore Sturgeon: there's a 10% worth watching.
In 1979, a staff headed by Yoshiyuki Tomino and Yoshikazu Yasuhiko presents a series called Kidoo Senshii Gundam, that soon becomes one of the great benchmarks in the history of Japanese animated science fiction, and yet another cult object for fans everywhere.
We'll forget without delay the long standing question, if Gundam is or is not a ripoff of R.A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers - we think the proposition preposterous, but that's beyond the scope of the present work.What's important is that Gundam surely deserves the respect with which is considered by its many fans; it presents a good adult story, with nicely detailed characters and background, and it openly aims to a minimum of scientific credibility. Featuring no BEM aliens or evil-evil bad guys and white-clad heroes but just human beings trapped in a meaningless conflict, the series aims high and normally hits the target.According to the legend, the series was a colossal miss with the teenager audience it was aimed at, but was at the meantime so successfull with university students and young adults that it created an important precedent, leading to an artificial division of target audience in the following years (often with unpleasant results).
The first Gundam series has spawned through the years various other tv series, direct-to-video features and series (OAVs) and feature films, sadly with a discontinuous level of quality.
In 1988, scriptwriter Tomino published three novels from the series, available in the west in the Ballantine/Del Rey edition, translated by expert Frederik Schodt.
Yosikazu Yasuhiko, former student of Tazuka, that did the character design for the original series and has a good reputation as a science fiction artist - and posessing what is probably the most easily identifiable hand in the business - can also be remembered for his following works, including the Venus Wars series (1988), that goes again for ant antimilitaristic angle depicting a conflict among Venus colonists in the near future. Yas, as he usually signs his works, is also responsible for what has for long been considered THE science fiction animated feature, Crusher Joe (1983), a space adventure with an eye for technology and a love for the detail. The movie later spawned a series.
Space opera was strangely long overlooked by Japanese cartoonists, despite its obvious possibilities. Only in the '70s science fiction manga finally succeed in escaping the Earth's gravity field long enough to reach the stars. In 1974 (22 years after the first Tetsuwan Atom story) another icon of Japanese cartoons, Reiji Matsumoto, publishes Uchu Senkan Yamato (a.k.a. Star Blazers in the western market edition) recycling not only the hull of the eponymous WWII warship, but also the background and the "cosmic" spirit of so many space opera classics in the Edmond Hamilton vein.
The highly romantic attitude of Matsumoto, cupled with a strange graphical style that at times seems careless, and at others detail-obsessed, will return in later work like Captain Harlock (a direct descendant of clasical science fiction characters like Northwest Smith) and its offshoot Queen Emeraldas. Scientific detail is another strong point of Matsumoto's, that to this day is one of the few cartoonists to spend a few words on his aliens' biology and culture. With Ginga Tetsudo 999 (Galaxy Express 999), built around aspace railroad crossing a strangely retro galaxy Matsumoto plants the seeds of distropy in his space opera: in a spiritually bleak future dominated by cyborgs, the only hope for the masses is to obtain a mechanical body. Sennen Joho (Queen Millenia) is a catastrophe story in which - another Matsumoto trademark - good guys and bad guys are not so easily identifiable. Practically the whole science fiction production by Reiji Matsumoto was brought to video as animation, and is often seen as the only alternative to giant robots in the '70s. Just like with Tezuka's, Matsumoto's work has been widely copied and pirated, leading to a vast opus of apocripha (including sonme Captain Harlock comics).
The activity of young authors, following the Toriyama succes, together with the market's attitudo of katering for a more grown-up audience (the same that decreed the Gundam success) leads in the early '80s to the publishing of a few strong series towering over a mass of "artificial" products.
A example of good but sinthetic product coming directly from the Gundam's side is Patlabor, by Masami Yuuki, a series specifically designed to achieve a great popular success, detailing with a rather anonymous drawing style the adventures of a police corp wose duty is controlling high tech servomechanisms called labor (from labour, or work, that that in czech is robota, from which we get robot... if you like vicious circles). The series reached the wanted success, thanks to a wide publicity coverage, ad has been distributed in various countries.
To some observers, much of Patlabor is a ripoff of Dominion.
With Masamune Shirow's Dominion (1983), we finally leave giant robots and labors behind and found ourselves in a sociological sf/cyberpunk setting, in a future short of breath as a consequence of pollution and with a crime rate so high that the police has to employ tanks. With a pleasantly nasty twist, the only sane characters in the end are probably the bad guys, that incidentally are artificial creatures, all of them. Mixing humor with action and offering a refreshingly cynical attitude seems to be the trade mark of Masamune Shirow, the last of the manga gods to appear on the scene.
Sociology (never without action), high-tech and a preoccupation with the social effects of scientific development also dominate the other works of Masamune Shirow, Appleseed (currently comprising four books and a companion) and Ghost in the Shell[later made into a shattering movie].Consequences of our scientific development, war and pollution seem to be also the main preoccupation of director-turned-cartoonist Hyao Myiazaki, an artis so highly considered by the world at large that must be aproached with all humility by the reviewer.
With his Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa series (five volumes so far), a complex post-holocaust future history with an openly ecological and pacifist attitude (the 1984 movie feature received an award by WWF), Miyazaki offered to the world what is probably the first comic book to display an openly intellectual attitude: the bibliography of the series is long and varied (ranging from Homer to Sterling Lanier, and beyond), and justifies some of the pretentiousness allegiations sometimes made about this w.
While other cartoonists (Shirow, Yas) are his superior as for both graphical ability and narrative style, Myiazaki still is one of the most easily recognized hands in manga, and the best animation director in Japan (as testified by a Cannes prize in 1979).
Again in a post-holocaust world, but with ess than pacific intentions acts out his adventures the protagonist of Hokuto no Ken (a.k.a. Fist of the North Star), by Bronson and Tetsuo Hara, kind of a Mad Max story with the added element of martial arts. The only strong point in the series (that in the end unwinds like a soap opera) is at best the graphical style; among Ken's ancestors, we should not be overly surprised finding Violence Jack, post-cathastrophe strongman and mercenary, another of Go Nagai's brainchildren.
With the pleasant Silent Mobius, by Kia Asamiya, we face another case of cinema/manga contamination: the author offers us the adventures of a team of paranormally endowed young women battling the supernatural invasion of beings from a paralled dimension, the whole thing against a backdrop taken lock stock and barrel from Blade Runner.
A young woman paranormally endowed is also the central character in Mai, by Kazuya Kudo, an iper-realist author probably working a little too much with a photocopier. In a Fugitive-like plot, the bad guy role is given to a big corporation, as in much of the '80s science fiction (non only Japanese).
And paranormal powers are the flavour of the day in Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, probably the bleakest comic ever produced and incredibly a cult object in the west; built on a premise that looks a little bit too much like Losey's movie The Damned, Akira mixes catastrophical science fiction, some mannered political extremism, teen-age rebellion, drugs, genetic engeneering and violence in a frankly overlong story that often leaves the reader with the impression that the author is looking for a way to go on. Great graphics, sadly colorized for the western market (a destiny Otomo shares with Asamiya). The monumental movie taken from the comic series (an estimated one million yen) suffers from many of the defects in the original. And about the technical perfection of the finished product, we can't but agree with a British viewer "Why make a cartoon that's undistinguishable from a live action movie?"
Otomo actually had aready pulled the same trick, with a much tighter storyline, in the equally bleak but more fascinating Domu, a few years before, telling us the story of the war between two psichics. On this one-shot production, and on his later work on the animated feature film Robot Carnival should rest the real appreciation of this author.
The Italian publication of Akira by Glenat Italia signalled to all the interested parties (and expecially the publishers) that Japanese comics were going to be big soon. A flooding of the market by wathever happened to be at hand was soon upon us.
Space opera was not the only overlooked science fiction subgenre in manga: we had in fact to wait till the '80s, with Rumiko Takahashi's Hono Tripper to witness a time-travel story worth its salt. We lay a cover of silence on the '70s series collectively known as Time Bokan - it was a good laugh, that's true, but once again it's not enough.
Takahashi is also the only author to offer us a series with a longer, and much more varied, bibliography than Myiazaki's Nausicaa, and we mean of course Uruseiyatsura (a.k.a. Lum), a staggering (in a positive sense) and chaotic crucible in which, from a nominal starting point featuring an Alien Invasion, all (absolutely all) the science fiction, fantasy, horror and folktale cliches are thrown in, amalgamated and transformed, producing the largest science fiction farce ever produced. Uncounted are the film quotes and classic homages are without number, and lost somewhere among the 200-odd manga episode (all translated into cartoons, movie-lenght features or OAVs) ranging from the downright silly to the incredibly clever, there's even a wonderful Fredric Brown memorial, a simple jewel of narrative technique.
The kitchen sink attitude of Uruseiyatsura has been translated also in its most immediate ripoff, JohjiManabe's Outlanders, another variation on the space-opera classic of Empire vs Rebels that somehow in the ends finds a dignity and even a touch of true pathos despite its starting as a two-bit farce, and derivative.
Finally, we must note a new direction in the market, probably saturated by too many sinthetic products aimed at selling models to kids and grown-ups. We have recently witnessed a growth in the interest in fantasy, so that elves and dragons battle aliens and high-tech warriors for the public's affection. Might be just a fad, but something good will probably be produce, and it will be remembered in the years to come. The genre has already attracted Shirow (Orion) and wonder-boy Toriyama (Dragonball), probably the only ones that can reach the levels of one of the milestones in Japanese animated fantasy, the classiclally inspired Arion, by "the usual" Yas. And you should not dismiss the unknowns.
[Notewothy error: both Orion and Dragonball are science-fantasy, not fantasy proper. And Science Fiction was hardly dead in Japanese animation and comics - as the productions of the 90s would amply demonstrate. This thing needs an update.]
(C) 1993, 1998 Davide Mana <doctor.dee@iol.it>
Disclaimer: the artwork reproduced on this page is propriety of the respective authors, and used simply as an essay of their production. Non challenge is made to the right owners of the artwork.
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