Have you ever realized how close to Shakespeare in productivity,

yeah

>>9455805
lots of people are as close in all of those categories (some surpass him)

>>9455808

I agree with you in some point. What I think that sets Shakespeare apart (in literature at least) is his unsurpassed gift with language. He is the best poet of all time; it is wonderful just how much invention is packed in the texture of his plays. No other poet is as great in the creation of metaphors as him.

Is like James Wood said in an essay about Melville:

“When it comes to language, all writers want to be billionaires. All long to possess so many words that using them is a fat charity. To be utterly free in language, to be absolute commander of what you do not own—this is the greatest desire of any writer. Even the deliberate paupers of style—Hemingway, Pavese, late Beckett—have secret longings for riches, and strive to make their reductions seem like bankruptcy after wealth rather than fraud before it: Pavese translated Moby-Dick into Italian. Realists may protest that it is life, not words, that draws them as writers; yet language at rush hour is like a busy city. Language is infinite, but it is also a system, and so it tempts us with the fantasy that it is closed, like a currency or an orchestra. What writer does not dream of touching every word in the lexicon once?”

“In Moby-Dick, Herman Melville nearly touched every word once, or so it seems. Language is pressed and consoled in that book with Shakespearean agility. No other nineteenth-century novelist writing in English lived in the city of words in which Melville lived; they were suburbanites by comparison. No other novelist of that age could swim in the poetry of “the warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days ... .” And so, despite the usual biographical lamentations, despite our knowledge that Moby-Dick went largely unappreciated, that in 1876 only two copies of the novel were bought in the United States, that in 1887 it went out of print with a total sale of 3,180 copies, that these and other neglects narrowed Melville into bitterness and savage daily obedience as a New York customs inspector—despite all this, one says lucky Melville, not poor Melville. For, in writing Moby-Dick, he wrote the novel that is every novelist’s dream of freedom. It is as if he painted a patch of sky for the imprisoned.”

As for the criteria of productivity, variety and human understanding, I can name some examples of artists that are as great as him:

>Tolstoy
>Ingmar Bergman
>Akira Kurosawa

>>9455805

bump

>>9455805
Tezuka was a fucking genius and it's a shame he died as young as he did. I know 60 is nothing to sneeze at but I wish he at least had lived to finish Pheonix. If you want proof, compare the opening chapter of Black Jack to any 'action' scene in speed racer and uyou'll immediately see what a master of sequential art he was, let alone his ability to construct complex multilayered characters. Also, how good is Ayako? Don't have that on my Tezuka shelf yet. Just backed the wonder 3 kickstarter to get all the physical copies of the extra books.

>>9456101
>Also, how good is Ayako?

"Ayako" by Osamu Tezuka is a masterpiece. On the surface, it is a startling story of events in post-WW2 Japan. However, within those pages, it challenges how we think about life, death, family, and country. I thought "Buddha" was his opus until I read "Ayako."

"Ayako" is the story of a girl who is the daughter in the Tenge clan, a family in the Japanese countryside, coming to grips with the land reform that threatens to upend their way of life. More sinister and damaging yet is the degenerate patriarch of the family. I will not spoil the book for you, but some of his actions are reprehensible. It is a testament to the freedom of press in Japan that Tezuka was able to publish this book at all. Jiro Tenge, a son who comes home from the war, instead of dying valiantly for his country, is another main character.

This masterpiece is a thrilling way to understand both Japanese culture, especially during their own "cultural revolution" after losing WW2. If you have ever wondered what life is like in a country that loses a war, this work will let you understand some of the long-term damage it inflicts.

In many ways, the Tenge clan's evildoing and horrible fate is a metaphor for Japan in it's involvement in WW2. It is no secret that Tezuka is a pacifist, but in this work, he elegantly, violently, shows the high cost of WW2 to Japan. No one in the Tenge clan is spared; even the youngest, most idealistic, clever son is ultimately corrupted. That leaves Ayako.

I will not spoil the plot for you, but I will say that the brutal treatment of Ayako is metaphoric as well, perhaps on several levels. Is she Japan itself? Is she the natural world? Is she a metaphor for the old, ordered feudalistic society of Japan pre-WW2? Is her naïveté pure in nature as it appears on the surface, or does something more sinister lurk beneath? This masterpiece asks many more questions. Maybe "Ayako" is the Japanese (or greater human race) character itself, good in its truest form, corruptible, weak, yet not what it appears on the surface? Do societies, particularly traditional Asian cultures, have too much emphasis on "face" while perversion lurks beneath the surface? (If this sounds like it explores some of the same themes director David Lynch prefers, it does.)

"Ayako" has a compelling plot, so it is easy to be caught up in it and think that story is the only point. If you do that, you are missing a lot. The artwork is compelling; some of the imagery is so haunting and bizarre it will stick with you.

Some say this novel does not compare to "The Watchmen" and it is not "Shakespeare." I beg to differ. "Ayako" soars to the heights of the best of literature, graphic and text alike. If you want an experience that will achieve the ultimate goal of great art - to change your way of thinking forever - then you must read "Ayako."

Ultimately, Tezuka gives us a small whiff of hope at the end - or does he?

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>>9455805
serious question:

Are some mangas perhaps like OP's pic related worth reading for train rides between short breaks and stuff like that?

>>9456108
If i hadn't wasted time looking for a not shit image I wouldn't have needed to post this >>9456110

>>9456108
Buying it this time next week then.

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>>9456110
Good manga is worth reading period.

Not all of these are high brow or 10/10, but if you want specific recommendations just ask. Pretty much anything by Tezuka or Urasawa is worth reading.

>>9456187
>20th Century Boys in horror

it's not tho

Also, Christ, that Shounen list is fucking shit. Mirai Nikki, Toriko and AssClass? Replace them with HxH, YYH and Beelzebub

>>9456187
It is just that I despise stuff like Naruto (or any childish supernatural being's fantasy story), new girl in middleschool or stuff that goes too far into the direction of hentai.
This obviously can't be true of most Manga since there seems to be some really profound stuff and many stories refrencing western literature (especially german somehow it seems).
I'll see if I can chek out Ayako sometime just because so much effort was put into >>9456108 which really made it seem very interesting.
>but if you want specific recommendations just ask
I wouldn't know how to ask. Just something that would seem like it could be regular literature in the form of a manga.

>>9455838
>bergman
>shakespeare
>that post
off urself

Yes, they're both shit with jar jar binks in every work.

>>9456218
> Just something that would seem like it could be regular literature in the form of a manga.
Read Naoki Urasawa's works. Monster would function really well as a TV series.

>>9456215
Hence: Psychological

>>9456218
If you want /lit/ manga, then all of Urasawas works, Message to Adolf, Buddha, Black Jack, Princess Knight, Ikigami, Twin Spica, Flowers of Evil [don't read this one in public], Oldboy.

>>9456187
>No Berserk
>No Vinland Saga
>No Monster
>No JoJo when Araki is mentioned in the authors list
>No Hunter x Hunter/Yu Yu Hakusho
>No Rurouni Kenshin
>No Trigun
>No Oyasumi Punpun
>No grand Teacher Onizuka
>No Blame!
>No Hajime no Ippo
>No One Punch Man
>No One Outs

What the fuck anon

>>9456239
>>9456245
Thx guys!
Gonna definetly check some of them out and give Ayako a shot as soon as I find it somewhere.
Also Les fleurs du mal is great.

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>>9456187
>Toriko
>recommended manga

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>>9455805
Tezuka was a genius for sure.

Fun fact: Tezuka was an avid fan of the theater. If I recall correctly, he had immediate family members that were actors/in theater (see: God of Comics, by Power). One of his last (untranslated last I checked) comics is about the theater and of course his "stars" (characters that function as actors, reappearing in different roles) is related to this too.

>>9455805

bump 2

>>9455838
>“the warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days ... .”

omg that's amazing. Don't even remember his style being that incredible but that is pure poetry

>>9456271
Why are you talking like your list of trash (not all of them, just the majority) has any literary merit?

>>9455838
>“When it comes to language, all writers want to be billionaires. All long to possess so many words that using them is a fat charity. To be utterly free in language, to be absolute commander of what you do not own—this is the greatest desire of any writer. Even the deliberate paupers of style—Hemingway, Pavese, late Beckett—have secret longings for riches, and strive to make their reductions seem like bankruptcy after wealth rather than fraud before it: Pavese translated Moby-Dick into Italian. Realists may protest that it is life, not words, that draws them as writers; yet language at rush hour is like a busy city. Language is infinite, but it is also a system, and so it tempts us with the fantasy that it is closed, like a currency or an orchestra. What writer does not dream of touching every word in the lexicon once?”

so true

>>9456271
Berserk is on there

>>9456218
You can't go wrong with Inio Asano, Natsume Ono, and Taiyou Matsumoto. Tezuka has some really good works (Ayako, Buddha), but beware that a lot of them are mediocre or bad as well. His storytelling is rather simplistic most of the times, and nuance is far to be found. His treatment of women can be despicable, if you care about that sort of stuff (at the very least, don't expect good female characters). Naoki Urasawa can be a good pick as well, though personally there just feels something off about his works. Finally, I would like to recommend the duo Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima, who together made some top tier samurai manga (check out Lone Wolf and Cub especially).

Some individual works (from other authors): Akira, Ashita no Joe, Mushishi, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, Cross Game, Kakukaku Shikajika, Emma, and A Distant Neighbourhood.

>>9456110
I keept the Evangelion manga on my bookshelf.
I think it deserves it.

>>9455805
>Holding Shakespeare as a high standard of productivity
That negro aint got shit on Lope de Vega
>3000 sonnets
>7 novels
>1800 plays
And he´s regarded as one of the greatest spanish writer. Being one of the key figures of one of the most important literary periods (The Spanish Golden Century), you can tell how good he was

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>>9455805
kek

>>9459488
And how many of the plays are worth reading? And how many have been adapted? Stupid spic.

Quality > Quantity

>>9459585

Spanish literature outside of a few select books holds an extremely small place in the classical canon.

>>9459585

this

Not this Bardolatry again - does anyone here remember a couple of years ago when /lit/ seemed to be 1/3 Shakespeare. Anyway, here's what we decided: he was working in a popular genre to entertain plebs, some of that entertainment had artistic merit, some didn't. A good comparison would be contemporary anime - it varies from art to crap - but the tools anime producers have at their disposal are so much greater than a medieval playwright/poet.

>>9459585
>implying Lope de Vega isn't quality

Thanks for the ignorant condescension though, that was definitely needed on this board.