Somehow, this amazing news had totally slipped by me until now!
The Black Jack OVA, directed by the legendary Osamu Dezaki who unfortunately passed away recently, is getting one more volume. The first volume was released in Japan in 1993, and this new is coming more than 10 years after the 10th volume, which was released in 2000.
The original voice actors for Black Jack and Pinoko are returning, and apparently did a live video stream of a recording session on May 14th.
And now I am reading that not only will there be this 11th new episode, but a 12th one as well. An amazing final gift from the great Osamu Dezaki. You can read more (in Japanese) here.
No word on any English-language release yet, of course. The previous 10 volumes were released on region 1 DVD by the now defunct Central Park Media and it's now likely harder to find a complete set. You can download subtitled episodes from Tezuka Productions on iTunes.
The Sadler's Wells theatre in Islington, London, England will be holding a new stage production featuring music, dance, and multimedia, celebrating the work of Osamu Tezuka. It is being choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and will have 5 performances this September.
Visionary Japanese animator and manga artist Osamu Tezuka provides the inspiration for internationally renowned choreographer and Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s brand new work - TeZukA.
Working with a cast of nine dancers, two musicians, an actor and a calligrapher, all drawn from Europe and Asia, Cherkaoui explores Tezuka’s fascinating world - a blend of tradition, science fiction and contemporary reality. Two of Tezuka’s manga stories which are well known in Japanese popular culture – Astro Boy and Buddha – have particularly captured Cherkaoui’s imagination in creating this new work.
TeZukA will feature a specially commissioned score from award-winning composer Nitin Sawhney with lighting and visual design by Willy Cessa, plus projections of Tezuka’s original illustrations alongside work by video artist Taiki Ueda. Using the dancers’ movements to trace the physical evolution of Tezuka’s drawings - from a line on a blank page to a single Japanese kanji (letter) to a fully-formed manga character - Cherkaoui will bring the “God of Manga’s” philosophy, drawings and characters to life.
You can book your tickets here. The September 9th performance will include a talk with Helen McCarthy.
The Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum in Takarazuka will soon host an exhibition featuring re-imagined Tezuka character illustrations by many famous artists in the modern moe style. The roster of contributing artists numbers at about 20, including Noizi Ito (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Shakugan no Shana), Narumi Kakinouchi (Vampire Princess Miyu, Ryoko's Case File) and Haruhiko Mikimoto (Macross, Gundam 0080, Gunbuster).
There are about 90 different art pieces and dolls set for display at the exhibition. Here are some examples featuring Princess Knight.
This seems to be along the same lines as the Tezuka Moe Gallery I first reported about last year, only that one was held in Akihabara. So now more people will get another chance to see what the current generation of artists can do with Tezuka's classic characters.
Continue reading "Tezuka Museum's Moe Re-imaginings"...
Now here's something you don't see everyday. Fan art of Osamu Tezuka's character Prime Rose. It was illustrated by William Ruzicka, a great artist who is currently working on Transformers Prime, which is a totally awesome show. Check out some more of his artwork here.
Have had some exciting new developments with real work recently, and on top of that keeping me busy, I've got some serious problems with the computer that I keep all my cool stuff on. Bummer. So things have been slow here, but I'll carry on as best as I can.
A while back I put a copy of the first trailer to the upcoming Buddha movie, based on the Osamu Tezuka manga, on my YouTube account. Over the past couple of weeks, I've gotten a few comments from very angry people saying that this movie is a disgrace to Tezuka and that the art looks nothing like his style. They seem convinced that the movie is terrible and that these changes were made to intentionally make it more generic and appealing to "shallow American fans".
To this I say... WHAT?
Yeah, I don't see it. We've hardly seen much of the movie yet and I see several shots in this trailer that definitely have Tezuka's touches.
Come on, look at that. The bright shiny eyes. The elegant swoop of the nose. This totally looks like a Tezuka shot!
And even if it didn't, so what? Osamu Dezaki did not attempt to replicate Tezuka's style with the Black Jack OVA series he directed. Was that a problem for anyone? Of course not. Besides that, I am pretty sure, for very painfully obvious reasons, that any decisions on the art direction of this project are not made with the so-called "shallow American fans" in mind. Since, you know, this is a movie about Buddha.
The works of Osamu Tezuka are legendary and deserve respect, but what people need to realize is that if we were to hold it up on a pedestal, never to change, reinterpret, or revisit it in any way, than these works are simply going to fade into obscurity. Tezuka did not want for his work to become solely the realm of academic study, he wanted real people and average fans from the mass audience to continue to enjoy it for years. He was constantly reinterpreting and revising his own work, and so I seriously doubt he'd have a problem with this. To say that he'd be "spinning in his grave" over a trailer like this is, quite frankly, incredibly ignorant. If you respect Osamu Tezuka, then you should at least know something about who he was!
Some people complained about the Astro Boy movie, saying that it was changed from the original story, that the character didn't look like the original style, that it was too "Americanized", and other such nonsense. Not only do none of those arguments hold up, but they entirely miss an important point. It's because of that movie that many more people know about Astro Boy. Isn't that a good thing? And now the same irrational complaining is happening again here with Buddha, despite the fact that Buddha, unlike the Astro movie, is actually being produced by Japanese companies.
Go figure, huh? Some people are never going to be satisfied. And to think, we haven't even seen the whole movie yet.
Very cool artwork by kizer180 on deviantART featuring several famous robot, cyborg, and high tech characters, including Astro Boy. Do you know them all?
It is my unfortunate duty to report on the tragic loss of legendary anime pioneer, Osamu Dezaki, who passed away last weekend due to lung cancer.
Dezaki had an incredible, influential career in the Japanese animation industry that went all the way back to the 1960's when he joined Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Productions and worked on the original Astro Boy anime. He would go on to work with other Tezuka properties including directing the Black Jack movie and OVA series, as well as finishing The Old Testament Story after Tezuka's death.
Probably best known as the director of the Ashita no Joe anime, Dezaki also worked on classic series and franchises including Aim for the Ace, Lupin III, Golgo 13, and Space Adventure Cobra. Even beyond that is his involvement in co-productions for American produced cartoons including Bionic Six and Mighty Orbots.
The "Postcard Memories" technique, where the importance of an animated scene is enhanced by fading into a fully detailed illustration, was created by Dezaki and has pretty much become an anime staple. Thanks to brilliant touches like this and his overall wide body of diverse work, the memory and influence of Osmau Dezaki will live on.
Continue reading "RIP Osamu Dezaki"...
This site is dedicated to everything Astro Boy, the works of Osamu Tezuka, and other related anime & manga. Whether you're an old-school fan, a newcomer, or anything in between, AstroBoy World is bound to offer something interesting for you.
