Tezuka's Manga Life

Known as the “Walt Disney of Japan” it is no surprise that Tezuka Osamu is still the best-known manga creator to Western fans. Current scholarship has uncovered the profound complexity and ambiguity not only of his work but of the man, the artist, and his life-dismantling his position as the god of manga.
Contributors to this volume of Mechademia-a series devoted to creative and critical work on anime, manga, and the fan arts-analyze Tezuka and his complicated approaches toward life and nonlife on earth, as well as his effect on the lives of other manga artists. Using essays and reprints of Japanese manga on Tezuka, this book questions his influence and attitudes toward the nonhuman, evolutionary theory, the aesthetic lineage of contemporary manga, incipient feminism in the reinscription of the nonhuman feminine, the sexual politics of manga bodies, the origins of the moe culture, and the styles of didacticism revealing the digressions of insects and classical modes, among others.
The authors offer varying perspectives on the historical transformations in production, distribution, and reception that gradually integrated and differentiated an overlapping series of markets and readerships in the postwar era. Divided into four sections that explore different “lives”-“Nonhuman Life,” “Media Life,” “A Life in Manga,” and “Everyday Life”-Mechademia 8 serves as a prehistory of the impersonal politics of the present while tracing Tezuka’s legacy.
Contributors: Akatsuka Fujio; Anno Moyoko; Linda H. Chance, U of Pennsylvania; Jonathan Clements; Hideaki Fujiki, Nagoya U; Patrick W. Galbraith; Verina Gfader, U of Huddersfield; Alicia Gibson; G. Clinton Godart, USC; Yorimitsu Hashimoto, Osaka U; Ryan Holmberg; Hikari Hori, Columbia U; Mary A. Knighton, College of William and Mary; Thomas Lamarre, McGill U; Christine L. Marran, U of Minnesota; Natsume Fusanosuke, Gakushuin U, Tokyo; ¿tsuka Eiji, Kobe Design U; Baryon Tensor Posadas; Renato Rivera Rusca, Meiji U; Frederik L. Schodt; Marc Steinberg, Concordia U; Tezuka Osamu; Toshiya Ueno, Wako U, Tokyo; Matthew Young.

Contents
Introduction. Manga Life: Tezuka . . .Thomas Lamarre
Nonhuman Life
“Becoming-Insect Woman”: Tezuka’s Feminist SpeciesMary A. KnightonDiary of an Insect Shôjo’s Vagabond LifeTezuka OsamuTranslated by Mary A. KnightonTezuka Osamu’s Circle of Life: Vitalism, Evolution, and BuddhismG. Clinton GodartAtom Came from Bugs: The Precocious Didacticism of Tezuka Osamu’s Essays in Insect IdlenessLinda H. ChanceOn the Fabulation of a Form of Life in the Drawn Line and Systems of ThoughtVerina GfaderThe Metamorphic and Microscopic in Tezuka Osamu’s Graphic NovelsChristine L. Marran
Media Life
Where Is Tezuka?: A Theory of Manga ExpressionNatsume FusanosukeTranslated by Matthew YoungPhoenix 2772: A 1980 Turning Point for Tezuka and AnimeRenato Rivera RuscaCopying AtomuMarc SteinbergTokiwasou StoryAkatsuka FujioTranslated by Matthew Young
A Life in Manga
Toward a Theory of “Artist-Manga”: Manga Self-Consciousness and the Transforming Figure of the ArtistYorimitsu HashimotoTranslated by Baryon Tensor PosadasManga Shônen: Katô Ken’ichi and the Manga BoysRyan HolmbergImplicating Readers: Tezuka’s Early Seinen MangaHideaki FujikiTezuka’s Anime Revolution in ContextJonathan ClementsDesigning a WorldFrederik L. SchodtUnicoAnno MoyokoTranslated by Matthew Young
Everyday Life
An Unholy Alliance of Eisenstein and Disney: The Fascist Origins of Otaku CultureÔtsuka EijiTranslated by Thomas LamarreOsamu Moet Moso: Imagining Lines of Eroticism in AkihabaraPatrick W. GalbraithTezuka, Shôjo Manga, and Hagio MotoHikari HoriOut of Death, an Atomic Consecration to Life: Astro Boy and Hiroshima’s Long ShadowAlicia GibsonWolf Head in PhoenixToshiya Ueno
ContributorsCall for Papers