Buddha 5: Deer Park by Osamu Tezuka
Buddha 5: Deer Park by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical, 2005). Years ago I used to read a lot of translated manga. Of course, at that time, a lot was relative to the very little being translated at the time. Now there is a glut of the stuff and none of it seems very interesting. Like everything else quantity seems to override quality. So I’ve been very happy that Vertical has been publishing Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha series. In Japan Tezuka is consider the “godfather of manga”, kind of like Charles Schultz, Jack Kirby, and Will Eisner all wrapped into one. He’s probably best known in the US as the creator of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion (from whence Disney got the Lion King, uncredited of course). Buddha is his fictionalized autobiography of the enlightened religious figure. Tezuka tells the story of an intertwined group of characters around the Buddha and how their lives are affected by the young Siddhartha and the more mature Buddha. Not being a Buddhist or have read on the religion, I can’t speak for the amount that Tezuka fictionalizes, but I do know that he was a learned Buddhist and that the manga is regarded as true to the material. Tezuka’s art style is cartoony, less slick than most manga you see, and utilizes a wide range of comic devices. He mixes the very serious with the humourous. I’ve been enjoying the series very much, though, as one would expect, it is quite moralistic. As of this volume (five of eight, but the most recent one released) Buddha, having reached enlightenment begins his teaching starting with a group of deer. The books themselves are beautifully designed hardcovers whose spines, when set up in a row, form a sequence of images of the protagonist as he changes in the series.
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