Mushi Bots

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>>15488057
W3 (1965) also has a piloted robot. Designs feels very Tetsujin-like ignoring the primitive hands.

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>>15488057
Don't remember the exact name, but there was Astro Boy story that fucked me up as a kid. I think it was a "what if" type of deal.
It involved cyborgs pretending to be parents and raising humans who were test tube babies and at the right age, having them fight in a death match against other humans.
MC falls in love with a girl who is later revealed to be an android. They activate Astro Boy. The end has the couple and Astro Boy dying.
Other story I remember has an American and Soviet robot in it who bicker quite a bit.

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>>15488057
I like the Astro comics.
Not so keen on the Astro shows. They're not bad usually but they don't really get the isness of the comics, sorta like the Uncle Scrooge comics compared to Ducktales.

Never read Magma but I watched The Space Giants. It was fun

>>15488057
It's terrific!

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>>15489124
I've been curious about the original anime and to a lesser extent the 80's version. Still need to get the rest of the TINY sized re-releases Dark Horse did.

Those live action series of his manga look pretty interesting, especially Vampires which combines live action and animation. Like, the werewolves are 2D animation and it looks pretty neat. The theme song is also very catchy. I kind of hated the manga so I'm not really sure why I'm interested in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He48iBPpuRY

>>15489458
>I kind of hated the manga
Would you care to elaborate the why's? Not really to criticize or disagree, I'm really just curious for your reasons. I read the manga long time ago, while I didn't find it to be exceptional, it was not really bad, even more compared to other of his more adult works. I also found kinda unusually funny Tezuka being a goofy side character on his own story.

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>>15491453
I think Tezuka making himself a main character comes across as really arrogant. Especially how he's also basically his real life self with Mushipro and everything and the main character wanting to work for him.

There's also Rock, he is basically the worst villain ever. In all of Tezuka's dark works that I've read, Rock's had basically no motivation for his actions other than simply being an asshole. If they're going to be evil just for the sake of being evil I'd much rather have his old villains like Candle Lamp.

Still leagues better than Apollo no uta, Swallowing the Earth, Book of Human Insects, MW, Ode to Kirihito and all that shit. I think Dororo struck the perfect balance without being too dark or getting rid of the characteristics he's known for.

Some fun trivia:
>In that position, one of his [Nishizaki] responsibilities was to register TV and residual copyrights for two Tezuka manga, Blue Triton (serialized in the Sankei Newspaper from 1969-71) and Wansa-kun (1971-72). Anectodal evidence points strongly to the unfortunate fact that they were erroneously registered in Nishizaki’s own name, thus cutting off the anime rights from Tezuka indefinitely. This may have been one of the contributing factors to the demise of Mushi Productions. Both manga remained in Tezuka’s name, however, and when they were reprinted

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>>15491509
Seriously, Dororo would've been perfect if Tezuka didn't lose interest in it and give it the rushed ending it got. It's a very interesting alternative to Mizuki Shigeru's Kitaro and the youkai designs Tezuka came up with are awesome. It's dark, but not overbearing and scenes don't exist for the sake of just being shock value. The anime is also excellent and follows the manga pretty closely from what I've watched (have it on DVD). I'd actually like to have the manga on my shelf but the covers of the English versions are are complete garbage. Panels of the manga lazily pasted onto a photo of parts of the human body instead of the great covers the Japanese versions have.

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>>15491509
Thanks for the answer, chap. I also agree with you that Dororo was the best balance between his common traits, and is my personal favorite manga of his, followed by some of his short story collections, and now Hidamari no Ki wihich is currently being translated. Truly a shame with that rushed ending, but I read that the anime, and live action movie, have their own diferent endings. So, at least there is that.

Here in my country we had a better luck with the covers of Dororo editions as you can see.

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>>15491606
Yeah, those are way better. I really hate how English publishers try to hide the fact that old manga have wackier art styles with pretentious looking covers. Some of them can be nice but the ones Vertical did for Dororo and Black Jack are a disgrace.

DMP's range from being bad to pretty good but i'd still much prefer the original art work. I'm pretty interested in all the new works they have on their latest Kickstarter and a few from their previous ones like The Glass Castle.

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Spotted a Pluto cameo in Wonder 3

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>>15488057
I love Tezuka's mecha.
Especially Majin Baron!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mXLoAeCJP8c

>>15495239
>Majin Baron
Will the movie for that still be lost to the ages?

>>15495239
I honestly really hate his face design, it's way too human for a robot.

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I don't understand why Tezuka was incapable of keeping his gross fetishes to himself. There's so much sexual focus put on animals in some of his later works that it's slightly disturbing. Like, his earlier works have tons of animals but there's no sexual aspects to them, but then you go to stuff from the 70's and on and he's giving animals human breasts and enlarged asses. There's also those drawings his daughter unearthed of a sexualized rat. It makes it hard to go back to his earlier things and seeing them as pure and only as a gateway to his fetishes.

>>15496245
To paraphrase what an anon once said about the rabbit theme for Ecole Du Ciel, it's only a matter of time before you go from Watership Down to Jessica Rabbit. Although it probably doesn't help that Tezuka had to adapt to the rise of Gekiga.

>>15496245
> Like, his earlier works have tons of animals but there's no sexual aspects to them
I would say that someone could already see that kind of stuff in his early works, more mild, but it was definitely there. In The Twin Knights of 1958, continuation of Princess Knight, or in Vampire, which is from the 60's, you can already see him drawing some female animals in sensual curves. He also had a huge obsession with transformism, and that since Metropolis. Is always the "this boy is so handsome that he can pass, and will, as a girl" and vice versa. I lost the count of how many times he done that. Rock the king of the disguise my ass, is more like Rock queen of the drag.

But probably his stuff that make me more uncomfortable is when he decides to show incest. Is generally or gratuitous or in way that it seems that he is trying to justify it through his characters as nothing of much, and even as kinda of normal.

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>>15496641
What was in Twin Knights, I haven't read that one yet.

Vampires has the transformation stuff, yeah. Dororo has it to a certain extent but is used for horror. I don't remember anything like it from Metropolis.

Rock is just an awful villain all around, to be honest. Very little substance. At least he gets what he deserves in Alabaster.

I think Ayako handled incest fairly well, it was looked down upon and shown as taboo. Still hate the ending to the manga, though. Felt really forced.

I'm glad that the people publishing his manga are branching off more from just publishing his (mostly) awful gekiga works and giving us more of his balanced works or just older series.

>>15496256
>from Watership Down to Jessica Rabbit
but Jessica Rabbit is just a human
she married Roger Rabbit and took his last name

Semi related, but does anyone find the Tezuka Disney comparison ridiculous? Tezuka innovated manga, while Disney was an animation kind of guy. Tezuka's Astro Boy was innovative, sure, but his animated films can't really be compared to Disney's. They're quite bad, the animation and colors and just the design aspects even look outdated for their time. The Hi no Tori film he's responsible for was a complete joke and couldn't decide on what kind of mood it wanted. It would switch from childish scenes and then try to be serious, and it's been rightfully criticized for that and for being way too long.

The Animerama films are good -- mostly Cleopatra but it also pales in comparison to the single film in the series he didn't work on. They have no consistency in tone and can't decide if they want to be serious drama or silly experimental animation.

His style of random gags in serious moments does not work in animation very well, I think. That or he just wasn't a very good director. The Hi no Tori OVA and series are miles better than what he produced. All of them still kind of fall flat with direction that doesn't match the creative paneling found in the manga so we're left with adaptions that while good, lack the fancy direction to bring them to their full potential.

>>15491509
>I think Tezuka making himself a main character comes across as really arrogant
Tezuka was part of the star system since the 40s, sometimes in a leading role in oneshots. I always viewed it as an influence from 19th century/early 20th century Western literature, where the author playing the role of narrator+character in fiction was fairly common. In both Tezuka's manga and Western stories, the author's role is more as a character than a representation of himself.

>>15499752
I wonder what crazy utopian slave city Tezuka would have come up with

>>15491453
It's my second least favorite Tezuka series. I thought that pretty much everything about it was handled in a really messy and unfocused way especially towards the end making the whole thing feel really boring, unsatisfying and unmemorable.
I was really looking forward to reading it since Rock is one of my favorite star system characters so maybe that had a part in it too? I don't really see why that would be but maybe it's worth mentioning.

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>>15500922
>Tezuka was part of the star system since the 40s, sometimes in a leading role in oneshots

Doesn't really make it less douchey with how he presents himself in Vampires. Random panels where he shows up in the background are fine but he clearly thought pretty highly of himself.

>>15501017
Have you read Kuuki no Soko? He has a leading role in a couple of those stories, and doesn't really come off too well in either of them. It's been a while since I read Vampires - and I didn't find the series memorable one way or the other - so I don't remember how he acts in that series. Though I do recall he dies at some point.

But as I said, I'm used to the "author as a character" thing from reading older stories.

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>>15501038
>Have you read Kuuki no Soko?

I think? I don't really remember anything about it, though.

The problem is the way the main character acts around the character Tezuka. Like he's a god and the fact that it's basically IRL Tezuka with his own animation studio and that the main character is dying to work for him. He even plays himself in the TV drama.

Anyone here ever play the Dororo vidya?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85JHTBMF03U

>>15501102
I'm really out of the loop regarding videogames. Can you emulate PS2 yet? The real deal super faithful and whatnot like the NES/SNES emulations and not the crappy "5fps, laggy, crashes constantly" stuff.

>>15501069
>I don't really remember anything about it, though.
One of the stories with Tezuka has him going all environmentalist in a remote fishing village where some industrial baron is dumping chemicals in the water supply. The locals get pissed and chase him out, because he ruined their livelihood - no one wants to buy their fish since he revealed they're chemically poisoned. Tezuka had thought he was doing them a favor. The other story with Tezuka as protagonist is one of those weird animal fetish stories.

>The problem is the way the main character acts around the character Tezuka. Like he's a god and the fact that it's basically IRL Tezuka with his own animation studio and that the main character is dying to work for him.
Ah, I do remember that now. Doesn't Tezuka the character get pretty uncomfortable in response? Tezuka undoubtedly had some real-life experiences with overzealous fanboys.

>>15501142
>The other story with Tezuka as protagonist is one of those weird animal fetish stories.

Now I remember that one.

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>>15491606
>Hidamari no Ki
Speaking of altered covers in licensed works.

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>>15502097
Why do publishers do this? Are they trying to mislead the readers into what kind of art they should be expecting?

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>>15502170
Either they're trying to trick readers into buying something they normally wouldn't be interested in, hoping they'll stick with the series after getting tricked into purchasing one volume, or they have some contract with the cover artist that obligates them to have the guy draw x number of covers and use random manga to fulfill the contract.

>>15502208
This is one of the worst ones I've ever seen: https://www.amazon.com/Reptilia-Kazuo-Umezu/dp/1600100414

>>15502218
That cover looks like they're trying to trick someone into thinking they're buying a pulp novel in an airport lobby shop.

>>15501142
There is also that one short story where he is forced to draw a toy mask using a cursed stolen mask as reference. And that one manga about him raising his children.

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>>15496710
>What was in Twin Knights, I haven't read that one yet.
Nothing really of much, just a cute draw female deer that asked to be transformed in a human girl during the day so she could raise a human child (Sapphire lost son) that she found in the forest. As I said, is nothing really much sexual, but I think you can already see here a early stage of the way he would draw female animals in delicate, sensual curves later on.

>>15491700
>Some of them can be nice but the ones Vertical did for Dororo and Black Jack are a disgrace.

I think Chip Kidd specifically is to blame for that shit.

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>>15502331
There's an entire manga about his children which is pretty cute.

>>15502228
I know right? No who who knows of the artist of the manga would see it on the shelf and recognize it. These covers completely slip by anyone who would actually be interested in them. Here's well designed example but would still prefer the original cover art

>>15502485
He should throw his hipster art ass in a ditch.

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>>15502612
>He should throw his hipster art ass in a ditch.

I wouldn't go that far, but it would be nice if every cover he did was as nice as the one for his Captain Marvel book.

Which, come to think of it, is good precisely because it doesn't obscure C.C. Beck's art. I also thought the thunder cut in the book's cardboard was also a nice touch.

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>>15504154
I'd just like to have the original cover art and seems like it'd be vastly cheaper to do that than pay someone to design a new cover.

The Black Jack ones are just...so bad and are one of the main reasons I haven't bought any of them yet.

>>15504309
Yeah. Something like this that's deliberately designed to cover up the art is just unnacceptable.

I don't mind new covers for US releases but they've got to actually look good, otherwise what's the fucking point?

>>15504594
There's a general lack of respect for the art of the old timers with English publishing. Publishers are afraid of pushing people away with "outdated" art styles so they do what was previously sad, mislead the reader. It's pathetic.

Really thankful Kodansha didn't do that with Queen Emeraldas and just used the covers of the Japanese re-releases.

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>>15502612
>>15504309
I think that those covers of the english release of Cyborg 009 by Tokyopop are a good example of a cover well made. Is aesthetically good enough while also presenting some panels from the manga itself. The same goes to the Brazilian Dororo editions >>15491606

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>>15504725
Yeah, those are fine and it's not like the Japanese editions of Cyborg 009 have particularly good covers either.

Dark Horse's releases of Astro Boy, Metropolis, Lost World, and Next world all use actual cover art Tezuka drew at least. Same with Viz's releases of The Phoenix.

Also, the single Vertical design I like