Apollo's Song

January 15, 2008
In this 1970 work by influential manga giant Tezuka ("Astro Boy"), Shogo Chikaishi is the son of a prostitute and an unknown member of her clientele. Derided by his mother and beaten when he sees her in bed with a customer, he comes to despise all lovemaking. Under psychiatric care, during electroshock therapy, he sees a goddess who curses him for disdaining love; he will be endlessly reborn to fall in love with the same woman, but one of them will always die before their love is consummated. In his visions, this story plays out in Nazi Germany; in an isolated, peaceable kingdom of animals; and on a near-future Earth ruled by artificially created humanoids who know nothing of love. In the real world, Shogo becomes a fugitive, but a woman shelters him, and his capacity for love is gradually awakened. This is no dewy-eyed paean to love's transcendent power, however; for Tezuka, love ennobles humans, but it also torments them. Tezuka's cartoony artwork here is similar to that in "Buddha" ("LJ" 1/04), and there is little of the characteristic goofy humor that can seem out of place in Tezuka's more serious works. With nudity and sex, this is recommended for adults.S.R.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2007
Tezukaas creator of Astro Boy, a towering figure in mangatells a fast-moving story of love, hatred, psychiatric fugues, and fantastic other realms in this at-last-translated 1970 work. Do the episodes of struggle for power, torture, romance, and heartbreak experienced and caused by young Shogo Chikaishi arise from his id, from the traumas of such psychiatric treatments as electroshock therapy, or from his crossing over to fantastic alternate worlds in the future and the mythical past? Here is Shogo as a Nazi, falling in love and despair with a young Jewish girl en route to her death; as a marathon runner who saves his love object, only to be destroyed; as the captive of a robotic princess; and as the patient of a traditional psychiatrist and his idealistic young female prot'g'e. Tezukas skillful plotting and dramatically spliced panels filled with emotional expression and hyperactivity make the whole long story compelling. Shogo is classically tragic as well as vicious, and the genuine beauty and nightmarish terrors of his world grip the reader as strongly as they do Shogo.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)