Osamu Tezuka is known as the Godfather of Anime for making the genre of anime popular throughout his career. Tezuka produced over 700 volumes of manga and over 500 episodes of anime. In particular the works of Astro Boy, Black Jack, and Kimba the White Lion have continuously influenced anime to this day as they have paved the way for countless shows.
Astro Boy:
Summary:
Without a doubt Astro Boy is known as one of the most famous animes to ever be created by Tezuka. This is due to the uniqueness of the story as it focuses on a robot that was created to replace a scientist’s dead son. Yet the scientist, Dr. Tenma, realized that Astro could not replace the void of his lost son. Astro was then taken in by Professor Ochanomizu, who nurtured him. Eventually Ochanomizu discovered that Astro had various abilities including feeling, understand, super strength, and display human emotions. With these new powers and his ability to connect with humans Astro was drawn to fighting crime. Initially when fighting crime Astro was not trusted by humans, as he was a robot, and viewed as a traitor to robots, for challenging them. Despite not being trusted by either group Astro, upon his many adventures, continued to fight crime, which resulted in him saving countless people and robots. Due to his courage on multiple occasions he eventually earned the respect of both robots and humans.
Significance:
Astro Boy is one of the most significant animes to ever be made as it has influenced countless other animes to be produced. The anime addresses the character Astro as he overcome adversity and gains acceptance. Due to this it has become the template for all animes that have characters facing adversity. An example of a current day anime that uses a component of this template is Naruto. Astro Boy does not just provide a template for adversity, but is the first anime to explore cybernetics and robotics. As a result, we see various elements of gears, electronics, laser cannons, and various android/humanoid elements. This has paved the path for various other works including Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Plastic Memories. Without Astro Boy there would be no robotic, cybernetic or android/humanoid elements brought into the anime world. Both the template of developing characters who face adversity and the basic introduction to robotics, cybernetics and android/humanoids have been significant advances in the anime world, were started with Astro Boy.
Black Jack:
Summary:
Black Jack is considered to be the greatest medical manga of all time. The manga, and later the anime, of Black Jack focuses on a black market surgeon, Kur? Hazama, known as Black Jack performing surgeries on different types of people. He is constantly involved in surgeries, requested by hospitals and individuals who can afford his rate. Yet these surgeries come with baggage that tests his morals. Often throughout these procedures he does the right thing. The anime and manga explore the various choices he makes while operating on people and how that affects him as a person and a doctor.
Significance:
Black Jack is considered to be the greatest medical manga of all time as it has established this genre. Prior to Black Jack the medical genre in the manga/ anime community was non-existent. When Tezuka started to publish Black Jack in 1973 it was the first time that a medical manga had ever achieved any recognition and success on a national level. The success of this manga is due to Tezuka’s background as he was a doctor before he was a manga artist. As a doctor he studied, wrote and defended a medical thesis to be able to practice medicine. A few of the things that he studied were human anatomy and different medical procedures. With Black Jack he incorporated many aspects of the human anatomy along with different medical procedures into the manga Black Jack. Due to being a doctor and having the credibility along with knowledge of medicine, and an understanding of the human anatomy he was able to convey a story through manga about medicine. Furthermore, through Black Jack Tezuka was able to accurately represent the medical community and point out the flaws in the way modern day medicine is being handled. Without Black Jack and Tezuka’s credibility the medical genre would have never existed because no other manga artist could have possibly done what Tezuka had set out to do. Without Black Jack achieving success in both viewership and economically the medical genre would have not made it and shows like Monster and Triage X would have never been produced. Tezuka’s Black Jack has established and paved the way for medical animes to exist.
Kimba the White Lion:
Summary:
Kimba the White Lion has changed anime since its debut. The story focuses on Panja, a lion king who has provided peace for all animals, but has taken food from a near by village to maintain that peace. As a result the villagers hire a hunter, Ham Egg, to trap Panja and kill him. They succeeded in killing him, trapping his wife Eliza, who is then being transported on a boat to a zoo. During her journey she gives birth to a lion cub named Kimba, who she throws overboard as a means to save him from captivity. The anime shows Kimba learning how to survive in the wilderness as he makes his way back to his native land. On the way he has interactions with both animals and humans, who help to teach him that peace between animals and humans is a possible goal to achieve.
Significance:
Arguably Kimba the White Lion is the most significant anime that Tezuka has done, due to the consequences it has caused. In particular Kimba has been historically compared to the Lion King as the two have similarities. For instance Kimba’s father gets killed at a young age, similar to Simba father getting killed at a young age. Due to these deaths both Kimba and Simba go on a journey before they are able to come back to their homes. With these similarities it has been suggested that Disney took the idea of Kimba the White Lion and changed a few aspects of it to create the Lion King. Kimba the White Lion is considered to be one of the first animes that had an environmentally themed message that it was attempting to convey. This was one of the first animes to have another meaning to it beside the story shows how ground breaking Tezuka was in his style of story telling. Without taking this step we would not have the multi-layered animes as we do currently. Kimba the White Lion has influenced American animation and Japanese animation in countless ways that have allowed for the genre as a whole to evolve.
You can pick up the first volume of Astro Boy here.
