Another rewrite, mostly because I was busy this week, and I'm still figuring out how the JPL would develop differently (if anyone has suggestions, I'm all ears.) So, here it is:
Go, Mighty Atom!
Osamu Tezuka had spent the war in Osaka University in Osaka, avoiding actually serving in the Pacific. He had treated several injured soldiers defending Osaka during Operation Damocles. The violence surrounding him, and the severity of the injuries he had treated during this period strongly affected his outlook on the situation. After the decisive end of the conflict, and the establishment of the Socialist Republic, Tezuka, while still in medical school, decided to act on a longtime desire to become a cartoonist. Heavily influenced by pre-war American imports, like Disney or Fleischer Brothers cartoons, and more recent fare, like American comics brought by the occupying forces, he released his first manga strip, The Diary of Ma-Chan, a fairly standard comic strip about a young boy and his friend, and their misadventures. Still, it was successful, and Tezuka went forward with the more ambitious New Treasure Island, a story using elements of the original Stevenson novel to tell a new tale. However, outside the realm of fanciful comic strip, the Socialist Republic was encountering growing pains. The Japanese Communist Party had effectively consolidated control over the entire country, making it in effect a dictatorship, which was backed by the UASR, and a number of rebel groups of various ideologies (ranging from sympathizers of the old Imperial government, to Anarchists to Democratic Socialists to Capitalist Republicans) were opposing the government. This was a recipe for conflict. Tezuka subtly put in slight critiques of the new government in his next title, Metropolis. Inspired in part by a still photo from Fritz Lang's 1927 feature of the same name, (though Tezuka had never actually seen the film), the story, set in the late 20th Century, has its protagonists, synthetic superhuman Michi and normal human Ken'ichi be pursued by "Duke Red", a corrupt member of the "Red Party", the ruling party in the future world, who had ordered Michi's creation as part of his plan to ascend to higher office. "Duke Red" (in early drafts, the character is named "Commissar Red") is Tezuka's view on the less desirable parts of the New Order, but thanks to scenes where Duke is portrayed as a direct outlier to the Party, and indeed, tries to seize illegal control of the Party towards the end, the story got past censors, and put Tezuka on the map as Japan's premier cartoonist.
Tezuka had been shocked by the destruction of Kyoto and Yokohama by the atom bomb, and with the rise of the People's Alliance in the FBU, and the beginnings of the Cold War, Tezuka decided to create a work which would exemplify his pacifistic, humanistic views, one much more apolitical than Metropolis. The result was Ambassador Atom, showing a future run by atomic power, and featuring a character by the titular name, a robot run by atomic power. However, readers took more to a minor character,one named "The Mighty Atom". Tezuka immediately made the character into his own manga, which proved greatly successful. A vision of a more peaceful future, Mighty Atom was made into an anime by Tezuka himself in 1958. This would introduce the character to a wider audience, especially when it was translated into English and Russian, and aired on PBS-6 in the UASR, and on Soviet state television, one of the first anime series to become successful outside of Japan.
Atom was created by Dr. Tenma, a successful inventor of humanoid robots, who hoped to use the success of human like robots his team had created to essentially bring his dead son back to life. However, after several years, Tenma realizes that Atom would never replace his son. Thus, Atom is sold to a factory, where he experiences the horrors of everyday proletariat life for many robots. Upon hearing this, however, Professor Ochanomizu, one of the scientists, comes and adopts Atom, having him fight for peace and rights for the lower class robots. He fights various villain threatening his futuristic society, some of which are cartoonishly fascist or capitalist villains. Atom also tries to help Ochonomizu, by helping research into how to use the technology to help people and robots alike, using his powers to both fight evil, and bring out the best in humanity (an analogue to Superman). Social realism was a major component of the early Atom stories, and indeed, it reflected the socialist ideas of Communist Japan. However, as the liberalizations of the 60's and 70's, Tezuka had the opportunity to expand the book, with Atom taking on more mundane bureaucratic villains representing the JCP, and overly idealistic robots, who have taken to extremism to advance their ideals. Atom also began to protect the environment from increasing waste and mismanagement.
Go, Mighty Atom!
Osamu Tezuka had spent the war in Osaka University in Osaka, avoiding actually serving in the Pacific. He had treated several injured soldiers defending Osaka during Operation Damocles. The violence surrounding him, and the severity of the injuries he had treated during this period strongly affected his outlook on the situation. After the decisive end of the conflict, and the establishment of the Socialist Republic, Tezuka, while still in medical school, decided to act on a longtime desire to become a cartoonist. Heavily influenced by pre-war American imports, like Disney or Fleischer Brothers cartoons, and more recent fare, like American comics brought by the occupying forces, he released his first manga strip, The Diary of Ma-Chan, a fairly standard comic strip about a young boy and his friend, and their misadventures. Still, it was successful, and Tezuka went forward with the more ambitious New Treasure Island, a story using elements of the original Stevenson novel to tell a new tale. However, outside the realm of fanciful comic strip, the Socialist Republic was encountering growing pains. The Japanese Communist Party had effectively consolidated control over the entire country, making it in effect a dictatorship, which was backed by the UASR, and a number of rebel groups of various ideologies (ranging from sympathizers of the old Imperial government, to Anarchists to Democratic Socialists to Capitalist Republicans) were opposing the government. This was a recipe for conflict. Tezuka subtly put in slight critiques of the new government in his next title, Metropolis. Inspired in part by a still photo from Fritz Lang's 1927 feature of the same name, (though Tezuka had never actually seen the film), the story, set in the late 20th Century, has its protagonists, synthetic superhuman Michi and normal human Ken'ichi be pursued by "Duke Red", a corrupt member of the "Red Party", the ruling party in the future world, who had ordered Michi's creation as part of his plan to ascend to higher office. "Duke Red" (in early drafts, the character is named "Commissar Red") is Tezuka's view on the less desirable parts of the New Order, but thanks to scenes where Duke is portrayed as a direct outlier to the Party, and indeed, tries to seize illegal control of the Party towards the end, the story got past censors, and put Tezuka on the map as Japan's premier cartoonist.
Tezuka had been shocked by the destruction of Kyoto and Yokohama by the atom bomb, and with the rise of the People's Alliance in the FBU, and the beginnings of the Cold War, Tezuka decided to create a work which would exemplify his pacifistic, humanistic views, one much more apolitical than Metropolis. The result was Ambassador Atom, showing a future run by atomic power, and featuring a character by the titular name, a robot run by atomic power. However, readers took more to a minor character,one named "The Mighty Atom". Tezuka immediately made the character into his own manga, which proved greatly successful. A vision of a more peaceful future, Mighty Atom was made into an anime by Tezuka himself in 1958. This would introduce the character to a wider audience, especially when it was translated into English and Russian, and aired on PBS-6 in the UASR, and on Soviet state television, one of the first anime series to become successful outside of Japan.
Atom was created by Dr. Tenma, a successful inventor of humanoid robots, who hoped to use the success of human like robots his team had created to essentially bring his dead son back to life. However, after several years, Tenma realizes that Atom would never replace his son. Thus, Atom is sold to a factory, where he experiences the horrors of everyday proletariat life for many robots. Upon hearing this, however, Professor Ochanomizu, one of the scientists, comes and adopts Atom, having him fight for peace and rights for the lower class robots. He fights various villain threatening his futuristic society, some of which are cartoonishly fascist or capitalist villains. Atom also tries to help Ochonomizu, by helping research into how to use the technology to help people and robots alike, using his powers to both fight evil, and bring out the best in humanity (an analogue to Superman). Social realism was a major component of the early Atom stories, and indeed, it reflected the socialist ideas of Communist Japan. However, as the liberalizations of the 60's and 70's, Tezuka had the opportunity to expand the book, with Atom taking on more mundane bureaucratic villains representing the JCP, and overly idealistic robots, who have taken to extremism to advance their ideals. Atom also began to protect the environment from increasing waste and mismanagement.
