Phoenix (5 points)

 For this week I read the first volume of the Phoenix series by Osamu Tezuka. I would say I read manga quite often but I realized I never sort of branched out in reading when it came to styles or more of the older works of the genre. Coming from a person who mostly indulges in standard weekly shounen stories, it isn’t to say I haven’t seen Tezuka’s style of art before. I recognize his influence on a lot of other major works in both manga and animation down the line, so I thought it would be interesting to see how this art style translated into telling a unique story. The Phoenix was quite a surprising read for me at first, and I think it grew on me the more I read. At first, I really didn’t know what type of story to expect, and the art style kept throwing me off just a bit because it really did remind me of light hearted cartoonish stories and funny comics. There were definitely some dark parts and twists that totally knocked me off guard, and it was especially interesting to see a character with such cute limbs and eyes get violently killed in some way. Another aspect I noticed right away is how the story seemed to change moods for brief periods of time to add in a joke that would be completely irrelevant. I thought it was pretty funny how a story about war and ancient legends could somehow draw an enemy in a Disney parody style then just go on with the battle as if nothing ever happened, and even how some characters felt self-aware that perhaps they were in a story itself. (Even though it appears to be a very feudal type era, there were mentions of movie theaters and James Bond) Rather than a fight by fight adventure comic, this one felt very much like a broader story and I was very intrigued by almost all the characters and interactions, especially with the relationship between the general and the boy. I think even with this cartoony style and fun writing, the author managed to convey a set timeline of events pretty well, and I could really see how these characters all got some sort of development as time went by. I honestly wish that if I had more time that I would probably go back and try to read some more volumes of this work because I can already see the story is far from over.


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