To begin, TEZUKA Osamu is considered by most anime and manga historians to be the “God of Manga.” He created some of the first modern manga in Japan and inspired the “Golden Age of Manga” in the late 1940′s. He created some of the most famous characters in the world, like Astro Boy (1963), Kimba the White Lion (1965), etc. Here is a clip from Youtube:

One of the first things that you mght notice is that Astro Boy has massive eyes that take up well over a third of his face. Compare to this animated short of Betty Boop, a major source of inspiration for Tezuka:

Notice that this particular clip of Betty Boop shows her as a ringleader for some kind of Third World freak show, ahem, I mean “Talent Show,” with caricatures of all races. Betty Boop was created in 1930, way before the Civil Rights struggles of the 50′s and beyond. The Betty Boop series wasn’t the first popular spectacle to make a profit off of racist stereotypes. Minstrel shows like the show Betty Boop puts on in this animated short were popular as far back as the blackface minstrel shows of the 1800s.

Also, going back to Astro Boy, notice that he can fly faster than a speeding train, he can fly around the world (there is a shot of milk maids in the Swiss Alps), and he can explode through mountains. The production date (1963) of Astro Boy indicates that it was made for a post-war (read: after World War II) era in which Japan is struggling to heal from the destruction of the incendiary bombs from the air raids on all major cities. Not only that, the Japanese government, under the Allied (American) Occupation, was trying to promote technological advancement in order to become a “First World” nation.

I think that’s enough for now. More next week! Don’t forget to post your comments!

The Foundation cited the dissemination of Japanese pop-culture, including anime, movies, and video games, as a major reason for the increase. Countries with the highest number of students were: Korea, China, and Australia. The most common reasons for learning Japanese were “to gain more knowledge of Japanese culture” and “to become able to communicate in Japanese.”

Source: Daily Sun New York No.1212, 11/01/2007

Now that I’ve finally established Animator, I’m going to embark on a project that will span many posts and many months: extolling the virtues of BASARA, a manga title that seemed to flop when it turned into an anime, but which has such literary and artistic value that I really feel it deserves a good critical treatment. (Usually manga titles that do really well in sales and build a strong fan base tend to be turned into anime. Most producers won’t take on a project unless it first proves its worth as a manga. Unless of course, it’s a project of Hayao Miyazaki. But even he had to prove his debut project’s merit by creating a manga fanbase for it first, before anime producers would consider making a movie out of it.)

So, what is BASARA? (click on the link above for a wikipedia article)
BASARA is epic. BASARA is Shakespearean. And yes, BASARA is a manga.

There is too much to say. For now, I will just put up tantalizing images and write some prose inspired by them. 

*Sarasa meets the descendant of a failed revolutionary in an underground cave. She claims the name “Tatara” for the first time. from vol 2, p87.*

I so nerdy.