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Adolf by Osamu Tezuka

edited September 2009 in Manga/Comics
Sohei Toge is a japanese reporter covering the 1936 Olympic games in Munich. He gets a call from his brother, a communistic youth studying at the university of Munich. His brother asks him to come to his apartment because he has to give him something very important, but Sohei is preoccupied with his job and when he finally arrives at the apartment, he finds it in complete disarray and his brother dead, hanging in the tree outside.

At the same time two german boys live in Kobe, Japan. One Adolf Kaufmann is the son of a german consul and his japanese wife. His best friend is Adolf Kamil, son of a jewish baker living in exile. The first Adolf is very distressed about how the germans are treating the jews and the accusations made about the jews, something he can not understand in the face of their friendship. Matters only get worse when he finds out that his father wants to send him back to germany to join the Adolf-Hitler-Schule and become a member of the Hitler Youth. Then one day, Kamil overhears his father discuss something very important. Apparently some documents disclosing details of Adolf Hitlers heritage were sent by mail from germany by a japanese communist to Japan...


To be honest, I don't like reading Tezuka that much. I read two volumes of Black Jack and a few Astro Boy stories but to me Tezuka is a bit too fast paced if you will and sometimes the story doesn't go into detail enough for my taste. I can understand how he crams so much story in so few pages but it just doesn't feel that fleshed out to me, and I find some of the anachronisms he deliberately puts in and some mistakes he makes (which are pointed out in the german release I read) a bit offputting. I do appreciate the influence his work has had for other artists though. In a similar manner I don't really like to read Shakespeare but I appreciate the influence he had. I'm just weird like that.

However, I love what I read of Adolf so far. It's collected in five volumes of about 250 pages and I got the second half of volume 4 and volume 5 to go but the story is very gripping and at points outright disturbing as some characters suffer very undeserving deaths. I have seen other pieces of art portraying the circumstances and life in Nazi germany and the World War II as the story progresses before, but this one is the best I have experienced. And that in spite of the fact that half the story takes place in Japan which itself has some trouble with nationalist movements, something I've had very little information about before but is very interesting in itself. Also, Smiley-Hitler creeps me the fuck out.

It is definitely deserving the 1986 Kodansha Manga award it received. Has anybody else read this manga?

Comments

  • There was an edition in Japanese at the Kinokuniya with all of the story in one volume. I wish they would re-release it like that. I've never actually read Adolf, but I've heard very good things about it.
  • I've wanted to read it forever. There was an English edition a long time ago, but it's pretty much impossible to find. I've never seen it at a con. I saw a stray English volume at Kinokuniya many years ago. I have to look on the Internets again to see if I can find it again.
  • Here's an Amazon search result.

    The first volume is going for way too much money.

    Why did they use those horrible photos for the English edition covers? The German editions at least have some Tezuka art on the cover. Vertical, are you listening?
  • Wow. Those covers are ridiculous. I am not even a Tezuka fan and I am disgusted by the terrible cover art.
  • GeoGeo
    edited September 2009
    Wow. Those covers are ridiculous. I am not even a Tezuka fan and I am disgusted by the terrible cover art.
    This was before Vertical Inc. and before publishers of manga had any modicum of how to publish stylistic, eye-catching, and symbolic covers. Just look at Viz's crack at Black Jack, the covers are painful to look. Two Fisted Surgeon? Oh sure, that's a great subtitle to use on something as awesome as Black Jack.
    Here's an Amazon search result.

    The first volume is going for way too much money.

    Why did they use those horrible photos for the English edition covers? The German editions at least have some Tezuka art on the cover. Vertical, are you listening?
    I posted earlier on two occasions (one of which was noticed and the other wasn't) a letter I sent to the (then) publisher of Vertical who said that they will never stop publishing Tezuka, but they want to get through the 17 volumes of Black Jack before continuing onto other works by him. I suppose your best bet to see this get a rerelease soon is from DMP, the latter of which recently released Swallowing the Earth.
    Post edited by Geo on
  • Wow. Those covers are ridiculous. I am not even a Tezuka fan and I am disgusted by the terrible cover art.
    I've heard several people say that they don't like Tezuka or aren't Tezuka fans, not that I care but I have to wonder if they have read any works by Tezuka or haven't really read the masterpieces like Ode to Kirihito or MW?
  • edited September 2009
    I've read bits and pieces here and there from Scott's shelf when I visit. It just isn't my taste. I appreciate what he did, I just don't enjoy it.
    Post edited by Kate Monster on
  • I've read bits and pieces here and there from Scott's shelf when I visit. I just isn't my taste. I appreciate what he did, I just don't enjoy it.
    Fair enough.
  • edited January 2010
    I wouldn't usually post links to scanlations here but since this series is apparently so hard to find the U.S. I do it anyways. Mangafox has the full series on their site.
    Post edited by chaosof99 on
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