Thanks to the adaptation of the "Greatest Robot on Earth" storyline into "Pluto," many manga fans currently know about, or at least somewhat know, the story this post refers to. Originally from the print run of Astro Boy's manga back in 1964/1965, this particularly long chapter (the longest single chapter of Astro Boy in total) has particular ties not only to the present (as thanks to above mentioned adaptation), but understanding why it was adapted is important as well.
"The Greatest Robot on Earth" storyline was a turning point in Astro Boy; the point in which he goes from being a 10,000 horsepower to a 1 million horsepower robot, in an effort to defeat Pluto, changes the outlook many people have about the character, as well as the stories that follow. In particular, this chapter of Astro Boy is particularly grim, akin to some of Tezuka's other, more adult works, and exposes the reader to themes like death, loss, and senseless violence perpetrated upon others for the sake of fame, greatness, or the lust for power.
The importance of the timing is what matters here--Tezuka, himself spurred to the manga world following WWII and his desire to do what he dreams, works anti-war themes into many of his works--M&W, Astro Boy, Phoenix all feature underlying themes and hopes that perhaps war will end, or that human nature needs to be changed in order to prevent mutually assured destruction (Phoenix, in it's second volume, ends in such a way, with a much bleaker portrait of the future of humanity). Tezuka's work with Atom, though, is interesting because the manga was more or less targeted at a younger demographic; Tezuka's inclusion of this particularly long and somewhat mature storyline is markedly different from many of the previous chapters in the manga.
What is actually at play here in the text is Tezuka's wish to pass on to a younger generation the futility of war, weapons, and the arms race (1965 being directly in the heart of the cold war, to which Japan was more or less a hesitant observer thanks to their location near Russia and maintained US Occupancy of many military bases). There really is no "winner" in this storyline; Astro, the hero, defies his mentor Dr. Ochanomizu, allows Dr. Tenma to power him up, and while he obtains the power he thinks he needs, he becomes in the eyes of many a dangerous object now: he is no longer the cute, heroic Astro Boy, but a possible weapon or tool of destruction that should be as admired as it is feared. Astro never seems to recover from that judgement--the declaration that he is a "Monster" in the eyes of observers--pushes him further away from humanity than it does bring him closer to it, one of the key tenets of the Astro Boy manga; the idea that robots, given the ability or the technology, could exist like humans with emotions and heart.
The real protagonist of this storyline, however, is Pluto, the "King of Robots" commissioned by the Sultan in his quest to regain power and dominance. Pluto occupies most of the manga's 187 pages, more or less becoming the star of the show and usurping Astro's role for the duration. Pluto, whose name can most obviously be attached to the Romanized Hades, and, thus, God of Death, is sent to kill all other powerful robots in order to assert the power of his master (but not his creator--a distinction to be made shortly). Pluto, though, is also the god of wealth, (Thus, Plutocracy), and it is here that Tezuka begins to tie in the ideas that humans with wealth, be they governments or single entities, have the ability to enact and create weapons of extreme destruction for their own gain: the ability to buy and sell lives with bullets, missiles, or (in this case) robots becomes as easy as pressing buttons, detaching humanity from their destructive impulses. Pluto's greatest "weakness" is his lacking of a "heart," like Astro, Epsilon, and Uran, and the achievement of gaining one is met with his unfortunate death at the hands of Bora (and, ironically, his own master and creator--here again 2 people, not one). Pluto represents the ultimate in human creative destruction, most obviously to be tied to the Atomic bomb, which also links him to Astro himself (Remember that Astro is Tetsuwan Atom in his original language). The impact of the atomic age upon Japan is perhaps one that does not need extreme discussion--being the only country to have not only one, but two of the devices used upon it as a weapon of war, Japan has been tragically linked to the use of atomic power since inception; despite the war, Japan is one of the largest proponents of nuclear energy, and Astro/Atom's place in that movement is not to be forgotten; the atomic powered robot with a cherubic face, Astro is the personification of the good that can be done with such powerful energies, and Pluto comes to represent the destructive force those same energies can have when wielded at the hands of the greedy. Astro, too, becomes this personification himself with his "powering up," and the distance it earns him from humanity because of it serves as a reminder that such powers--even in the body of a child--are not something to be used lightly or tossed around for petty reasons (Ochanomizu's despair at Astro's powering up succintly depicts despair at his loss of innocence in this forced "maturation"--and thus the loss of that power's innocence).
Tezuka's intentions are not exactly hard to discover; being that he is working here for a younger audience, his themes become easier to detect and understand, but in this regard he is also akin to Dr. Seuss, who himself saw the ability to perhaps change the perceptions of the world by approaching them through the eyes of babes; many of Seuss' famous works, such as "The Lorax," contain political and social messages, and Tezuka is working along the same lines here--replace robots with atomic bombs, with the childlike innocence of Astro as that of the national infancy of post-war Japan in the nuclear age, and the parallels become easier to define for readers of any age. That ease of discovery, though, doesn't make those messages any less important, and it also does not uncover or fully depict the intentions and contexts of the manga and its themes; it just goes to the depiction and discussion of some of them.
Pluto's death comes, tragically, after he has not only realized his own heart, but has rejected the order to fight Astro, coming into his own and putting an end to the orders of his master; this is the direct way in which Pluto and Astro no longer represent simple weapons (like bombs), but also become representations of soldiers at war--Pluto and Astro work together as comrades to stop a natural disaster, and their shared understanding aftewards averts a man made disaster (their destruction at each other's hands). This catharsis is tragically ended by the appearance of Bora, who summarily defeats Pluto, and is then destroyed by a combination of Astro's power and Pluto's self-destruct sequence. The final robot revealed, then, is that of Dr. Goji / Abullah, the Sultan's manservant and creator of both Pluto and Bora. While Astro is the last combatant standing, Dr. Goji / Abullah gets the last laugh, of sorts, by revealing his hand in creating Bora simply to destroy Pluto, a show in both the ways in which one weapon will always be trumped by another, more sophisticated version, but also the ways in which those who create said weapons have no real allegiances except to their own agendas and desires--the personification here of that person as a robot, then, plays directly into the notion that in the age of modern war, robots (soldiers, weapons, tanks, bombs, etc.) simply do not have direct "hearts," but are instead "tools" to be used and deployed at the correct time.
Readers of older manga may see some correlations here between this Tezuka story and Shotaro Ishinomori's Cyborg 009 series (Itself beginning publication in 1964, the same year as this story); there are, in many ways, extremely similar, if not totally similar themes, and the original ending to the 009 series is perhaps one of the most touching ways in which to depict this unfortunate disconnect between humanity and their own tools of destruction. At the climax of 009, 009 and 002 (Joe and Jet), themselves forcibly recreated as cyborgs in order to wage war for Black Ghost, plummet to their deaths from space. The reader last sees them as burning ashes, watched by two young children--one a boy and the other a girl--who wish upon the dead heroes, believing them to be a shooting star; the girl wishes for peace, while the boy wishes for a gun. Gendered readings aside, the deaths of 009/002, the defeat of Black Ghost, and the wish of the young boy work in tandem to portray the futility in the peace process, however bleak that may sound--while one war ends, another act of great violence is waiting around the corner. Tezuka, too, is greatly aware of this, and the impending possibility of further war between the US and the Soviets pushes him (and others) to attempt to reconcile the futility not only of war, but its complete absurdity. Pluto, Bora, and Astro represent the endless cycle of death and destruction that humans willingly create for themselves, and will always create for themselves, making Astro's final wish for peace overshadowed by Ochanomizu's reply to his question as to why robots fight: "It's because humans make them do it." What is interesting is that up to this point, the fighting is portrayed as somewhat of an aberration; yet, each of the 7 robots are created with, and able to use, weapons and abilities that serve only to destroy other things--Astro himself is equipped with the slightly comical machine guns in his rear end (perhaps a joke upon the "asinine" nature of firearms)--and so the fact that robots do fight each other frequently is considered to be "natural," implying that this cyclical destruction and the creation of more tools to continue said destruction is as natural to the humans who "make them do it" as it is for those same humans to eat, breathe, or make love.
As a final piece, one may ask what was the reasoning behind "Pluto," the adaptation. Adaptations are not singular entities, and carry within themselves multiple layers of reasoning behind their creation. "Pluto," which began in 2003, shares no actual "anniversary" with the manga, and it is only through the exchange of knowledge in terms of what is "different" in "Pluto" that reveals the reasoning behind it--Urasawa's adaptation deals with many of the same anti-war themes as the original, in a much more mature and adult way; "Pluto" is a retelling of the original story with a mature template, and as such features much more heavily the ideas of destruction, war, loss, and the senselessness of warfare than the original; it is, however, perhaps even more tragic in the sense that "Pluto" needed to be retold to the same generation, the one that grew up with "The Greatest Robot on Earth," now confronted with the maturation of that storyline in their own matured lives. "Pluto" exists because of "The Greatest Robot on Earth," but both stories exist because of the unwillingness for human nature, to truly change between their release: a span of 39 years, years in which humans have not only perhaps gotten worse at wanton destruction, but, as in the creation of Pluto and then Bora, have become more and more adept at engaging in said destruction with faster, more powerful tools, more impersonal weapons and devices (some almost literally robotic) through which to destroy one another. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the original story is that Astro's wish never came true, but has instead continued in an endless cycle, allowing him to once again plead that: "I still believe robots will all become friends one day." Perhaps, if humanity is lucky enough, Astro will not need to wish a third time.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
The Diary of Somebody
Hello there!
Of course, who I'm saying hello to may be myself. That's fine; this blog is for me as much as it is for anyone else.
The point of this blog, if the little description on the side didn't do a good job, is allowing me a place to write down (and or share) my ideas and thoughts about manga, and possibly other mediums.
For some history, I've been reading manga for about 20 years now--I started when I was 10, after discovering it (and anime) through the Sci-Fi channel and my local comic shop, which had started to import, at the time, "Japanimation." It's been something I've loved and enjoyed for years, but I never really thought of doing anything with it.
Flash forward, I'm currently engaged in my PhD in Literature and Criticism. One of the interesting things that I've floated in my mind since moving up in my studies, and one of the things discussed here in my program at length is the issues the English (and Academic English, I mean) field currently has with the battle between "Literature" and "literature," the big and little l. What some of you might already guess, is that the English field is currently facing a split, or a tear, in the ways in which it studies, or what it studies, when it comes to literature--we're rapidly approaching the point in which the field must admit that works such as comics, television, film, and video games deserve not only attention, but can be used to better understand our world. Comics, here meaning "Western," have already started trickling into the classroom and academia, however doing so only in terms of again big and little L--what people call "Graphic Novels," titles like Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Maus, etc. That's good, but the problem is again creating a binary that excludes others through the hierarchical constructions of binary systems--you cannot have an "equal" binary, and one thing must always be better than the other.
Manga, in many ways, exists in a liminal space here--it is neither big L or little l, because most westerners, and perhaps even many native Japanese, have never through of the medium as anything more than a diversionary art form. That may be over simplifying the existence of manga in Japan, but in the West it gets very little, if any consideration outside of being "comics from Japan that feature lots of schoolgirls and ninjas." Thankfully, and perhaps due to market maturation, Western readers are now being gifted with things like the full Tezuka library (thanks to Vertical), works of a more mature nature (like Viz's SIG line), and obscure titles that probably would not have appealed to readers here years ago (Yen Press here does a fantastic job with things like Otoyomegatari, the Haruhi novels, and again Viz and Vertical, as well as Dark Horse). Still, while that's good, I feel there's a vacuum of people writing about this medium, of experiencing it above the level of pure entertainment; once again, the big and little l. Manga has few, if any, boundaries--it is one of the most expressive mediums, perhaps, in the world, rivaling the creation of novels in the 20th century. While many stories may be similar or repetitive, that's true of almost any creative medium that exists.
So, what I've decided to do is put my foot down in the wet soil of the medium, to perhaps be the first, or one of the first, to consider manga as more than just "comics that you read backwards," and perhaps further not only people's enjoyment of it, but perhaps make them think, or think about their enjoyment, a little more deeply.
I also think I'll do the occasional review, but most of the content here will be essay format; I really do hope that, if you stumble upon this place, you come back and see what's going on, and I hope that it may perhaps give you things to think about, manga to read, or at least expand upon the ways in which you can not only have your cake, but eat it too, and begin to, in some small way, close the gap between that big and little l--to create an academic workplace in which all works are examined, read, enjoyed, and discussed, not because they are "works of fine art," but because they are all Texts to be decoded, understood, and considered.
Of course, who I'm saying hello to may be myself. That's fine; this blog is for me as much as it is for anyone else.
The point of this blog, if the little description on the side didn't do a good job, is allowing me a place to write down (and or share) my ideas and thoughts about manga, and possibly other mediums.
For some history, I've been reading manga for about 20 years now--I started when I was 10, after discovering it (and anime) through the Sci-Fi channel and my local comic shop, which had started to import, at the time, "Japanimation." It's been something I've loved and enjoyed for years, but I never really thought of doing anything with it.
Flash forward, I'm currently engaged in my PhD in Literature and Criticism. One of the interesting things that I've floated in my mind since moving up in my studies, and one of the things discussed here in my program at length is the issues the English (and Academic English, I mean) field currently has with the battle between "Literature" and "literature," the big and little l. What some of you might already guess, is that the English field is currently facing a split, or a tear, in the ways in which it studies, or what it studies, when it comes to literature--we're rapidly approaching the point in which the field must admit that works such as comics, television, film, and video games deserve not only attention, but can be used to better understand our world. Comics, here meaning "Western," have already started trickling into the classroom and academia, however doing so only in terms of again big and little L--what people call "Graphic Novels," titles like Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Maus, etc. That's good, but the problem is again creating a binary that excludes others through the hierarchical constructions of binary systems--you cannot have an "equal" binary, and one thing must always be better than the other.
Manga, in many ways, exists in a liminal space here--it is neither big L or little l, because most westerners, and perhaps even many native Japanese, have never through of the medium as anything more than a diversionary art form. That may be over simplifying the existence of manga in Japan, but in the West it gets very little, if any consideration outside of being "comics from Japan that feature lots of schoolgirls and ninjas." Thankfully, and perhaps due to market maturation, Western readers are now being gifted with things like the full Tezuka library (thanks to Vertical), works of a more mature nature (like Viz's SIG line), and obscure titles that probably would not have appealed to readers here years ago (Yen Press here does a fantastic job with things like Otoyomegatari, the Haruhi novels, and again Viz and Vertical, as well as Dark Horse). Still, while that's good, I feel there's a vacuum of people writing about this medium, of experiencing it above the level of pure entertainment; once again, the big and little l. Manga has few, if any, boundaries--it is one of the most expressive mediums, perhaps, in the world, rivaling the creation of novels in the 20th century. While many stories may be similar or repetitive, that's true of almost any creative medium that exists.
So, what I've decided to do is put my foot down in the wet soil of the medium, to perhaps be the first, or one of the first, to consider manga as more than just "comics that you read backwards," and perhaps further not only people's enjoyment of it, but perhaps make them think, or think about their enjoyment, a little more deeply.
I also think I'll do the occasional review, but most of the content here will be essay format; I really do hope that, if you stumble upon this place, you come back and see what's going on, and I hope that it may perhaps give you things to think about, manga to read, or at least expand upon the ways in which you can not only have your cake, but eat it too, and begin to, in some small way, close the gap between that big and little l--to create an academic workplace in which all works are examined, read, enjoyed, and discussed, not because they are "works of fine art," but because they are all Texts to be decoded, understood, and considered.
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