www.smartymagazine.com "Ayako" by Osamu Tezuka by 28 Vignon Street #Comics Osamu Tezuka, nicknamed the " Dieu of manga ", remains one of the most important and innovative authors today with his some 700 works and his pioneering work in animation. We inaugurate this selection of authors from which we must read everything with this master who installed manga in Japanese culture, gave it its codes and explored all its genres (or almost). Whether through his unique drawing style, his talent as a narrator, his approach to the medium or his essays from animation ; Osamu Tezuka remains an essential keystone for anyone who wants to read and understand manga (in addition to enjoying reading his incredible masterpieces.) Among his greatest works are Phoenix: eleven volumes of a history spread over several centuries around the Phoenix, a divinity that accompanies humanity from its beginnings to a distant future in space. Each volume is independent (despite the common thread and the winks between the different stories) and could be a series in itself as Tezuka crystallizes the best of his talents in this work that has occupied him all his life. The Life of Buddha, tells the story of Prince Siddhartha's metamorphosis into Buddha, intertwined with a host of secondary stories that depict Asia in the 5th century BC and the ramifications of this new religion that will become so important. As for Phoenix, Tezuka plays on flash-back & flash-forward to offer us important points of view and variations on certain historical episodes. Humour is not absent from this work, which is thought-provoking without ever losing its reader. His most poetic manga, Astro Boy, famous all over the world, is the most famous hero of the cartoonist. Child of the atom, Astro represented the hope of nuclear energy then in full expansion worldwide (and particularly in Japan.) Naive and positive superheroes, he summons the themes dear to his author through the thoughts and doubts of this invincible little boy. Like Superman, his exclusion from humanity despite this desire to integrate it allows him to have a strong perspective on his contemporaries. Ayako, a dark family story against a post-World War II political backdrop. A dive into the heart of the human being around this child who will spend her life in a cellar before discovering, as an adult, the world around her with horror and excitement. Confronting rural Japan, almost feudal with the modernity brought by the West, is one of the recurring themes of the work of Astro Boy's creator. Under the guise of telling the story of the fate of this young girl sacrificed by her family to protect dark secrets, Tezuka tackles all the important subjects of her time: corruption, nationalism, yakuza control, abuse of the American colonist, defeat and corruption of Japanese politics, aristocratic and bourgeois control of the land in the name of the economy under reconstruction, murder and prostitution... A real panorama of the other side of the stage of the all-powerful Japanese reconstruction. A rare thing in his works, there is not really any heroin here. Without Manicheism, each character has his share of shadow in this game of dupe that will lead to Ayako's sacrifice and resurrection. We will follow the falls and successes, but also the deaths and love stories of the family members over nearly fifteen years with a rhythmic and suspense without dead times that prevents us from releasing the album. Faithful to his off-road style, he alternates highly detailed landscapes and stylized characters with cartoon attitudes and silhouettes that take over to focus on action and dialogue. In most of his stories, the artist likes to represent grace and beauty in the face of caricatured characters. His immense talent allows him to make these two states coexist with great charm. His innate sense of cutting does not prevent him from dwelling on beautiful images and proposing almost dreamlike incursions into the middle of this very raw fiction. It is difficult to summarize in a few lines the scope of his work, if you have the opportunity to read or watch documentaries on this extraordinary draftsman, you will see that he was leading several series at the same time, even going so far as to draw some plates while dictating to his assistants the dialogues of another series at the same time temps ! He can also be seen drawing a taxi ride, sleeping a few minutes before spending an all- nighter on a board or finding tips to escape publishers camping in front of his house. These anecdotes give an idea of the extent of the work, and the abnegation of this author who drew non-stop every day of his life, inventing and adapting stories to strong philosophical and humanistic themes even today. Passionate about science fiction and ecology (a term still absent in the media at the time), he imagined the future of humanity from different angles, focusing on technology, politics, ecological disasters and sexuality with a unique vision. By Thomas Mourier "Ayako" by Osamu Tezuka Complete at Delcourt "Bubble click and collent" 15 Nov 2019 #Ayako #Chefs-D’Œuvre #Japon #Manga #Osamu Tezuka copyright: All rights reserved copyright: All rights reserved copyright: All rights reserved copyright: All rights reserved www.smartymagazine.com Contacts smArty Intern'l Ltd Ibex House Baker Street Weybridge KT13 8AH [email protected] www.smartymagazine.com.