Tezuka Gene: Light in the Darkness

November 7, 2008 by J!-ENT 

In a recent column for Daily Yomiuri, Tom Baker writes about the “Tezuka Gene: Light in the Darkness” show at Parco Department Store in Shibuya, Tokyo.

A crudely stitched scar slashing diagonally across his face makes Black Jack instantly recognizable. It’s easy to spot this Osamu Tezuka manga character at the “Tezuka Gene: Light in the Darkness” show at the Parco department store in Shibuya, Tokyo, even though he has been reimagined by several artists in different styles.

Tezuka (1928-1989) had his own distinctive style, but the early influence of Walt Disney animation remained clearly visible in it. Even when his material was dark and sinister, his characters were cute.

Present-day artist Kyotaro Aoki has taken Black Jack and characters from Tezuka’s Dororo, MW, Ode to Kirihito and other manga and changed their cartoon faces into lifelike pencil portraits, showing what they might look like in the real world.

While Aoki adds detail, Akihiro Soma (Concorde), strips it away, presenting Black Jack in a minimalist torn-paper collage resembling the work of American illustrator Eric Carle (known for his kids picture books such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar).

An art collective known as Enlightenment takes the liberty of making Black Jack a woman, in a large painting in which the outlaw surgeon is partly hidden by drugs, money and other symbolic objects flying out of her billowing cape.

The group also painted an image inspired by MW in which two nude men embrace behind an ornate crucifix. In that convoluted manga story, a young terrorist genius uses his sexual magnetism to torment a Catholic priest (who earlier in life had been a gang member who kidnapped him), turning the older man into a pawn in an apocalyptic plot.