What’s up people!
Today we’re covering The Great Osamu Tezuka. I know technically this person actually existed in real life, but there’s a larger reason why we’re covering him.
So, to start it all off. If you don’t know who Osamu Tezuka, I’m 100% sure you’re familiar with his works such as Princess Knight, Dororo, Astro Boy, and hopefully Black Jack. Yes! This guy was not only the creator of Kuroo Hazama, but also the iconic manga and anime series, Astro Boy (named Tetsuwan Atom 鉄腕アトム in the original Japanese meaning Mighty or Strong-Arm Atom). Tezuka-san has had a hand the creation and development of Japan’s first animated series and has touched the hearts of many Otaku across the globe.
While being a fanboy of Tezuka-san’s works, there is another reason why I felt the need to write about him today. Not only was he a manga author and illustrator, but he was actually a medical doctor in Japan too! Through AniMedica, I hope to touch on interesting elements of history whether history in animated media or medical history and I thought this would be a great chance to talk about it.
Before being honored as the, “(God)Father of Manga”, Tezuka-san was just a child from Osaka, Japan. He was the eldest of 3 and came from a family with interesting histories. He came from line of physicians on his father’s (minus his direct father and grandfather), and military relatives from his mother’s side. Both of his parents influenced and fueled his growing passion for art and creation. His mother often brought him to the theatre and his father exposed him to Disney films as a child, his favorite being Bambi. Like any other child, Tezuka-san also had a strong curiosity and fascination with bugs, especially beetles. According to both his Wikipedia page and his website, Tezuka-san came up with the pen name Osamushi which he liked due to how the beetle’s name resembled his own (Osamu). From a young age, Tezuka-san started developing short manga. During high school, he was recruited to work in a factory to support the WWII efforts, but still continued to write manga. In 1945, he was accepted into Osaka University’s Medical School to study medicine. Simultaneously while studying to be a doctor, he was till creating manga and also professionally published some of his creations. Tezuka-san managed to illustrate and publish the following works before graduating medical school in 1951: Diary of Ma-chan, Shin Takarajima (New Treasure Island), The Strange Voyage of Dr. Tiger, The Mysterious Dr. Koronko, The Trilogy of Lost World, Metropolis, and Next World, Kimba the White Lion, and finally Ambassador Atom (which showcases the first appearance of Astro Boy’s character). That’s pretty amazing, especially doing all that work while in medical school too! Despite the education, he never really went out to practice medicine and instead used his extensive knowledge to add more depth and knowledge to his manga creations like the Black Jack series. After completing medical school, he really spent majority of his time focusing on his manga and trying to achieve his goal of creating a manga studio. Tezuka-san was able to finally accomplish this in the 1960’s first called Tezuka Productions and renamed Mushi Productions.
Something I find amazing about Tezuka-san or Dr. Tezuka, however you might wish to address, is that he was dedicated to his craft till the very end. He died on February 9th, 1989 from stomach cancer and in his last breath he begged his nurse to let him continue working (on a manga he was drawing).
I’m not going to go into each of his works and meta-analyze anything but rather I would like to mention some interesting facts about Tezuka-san.
First, this is quite random, but Tezuka-san is a descendant of Hattori Hanzou, a very famous ninja who served Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Secondly, similar to how Kuroo Hazama, Tezuka-san himself suffered from a fungal infection that almost led to a hand amputation when he was child. His experience being treated by a doctor inspired him to want to become a physician and help others. Where have we heard that type of inspiration before? 😊 He also received his PhD from Nara Medical University in 1961 with thesis analyzing the Membrane structure of Mud Snail Spermatids. Cool right!!?!?!!
Thirdly, Tezuka-san embodies a characteristic of physicians and healthcare workers that I think we sometimes forget, humanity. As I mentioned yesterday, doctors are people too who have interests including their profession but also outside of their profession. Tezuka-san loved medicine, but he also loved making manga, he also had a passion for insect collecting, Disney, and also baseball! His passion for his craft, specifically manga and illustration, was so well-known that he not only conversed with Walt Disney and Stanley Kubrick, but he was invited to work for Disney and the 2001: A Space Odyssey movie. In both instances though, Tezuka-san declined the offer to devote time to his manga and his studio. How commendable!
Well, that's all folks! Hopefully, you all know by now that I would usually try to talk about what type of doctor this character would be at this point, but this is special. I could not actually find any information on what type of physician he wanted to be, but nevertheless he was licensed doctor. I would like to highlight the distrinction that he went to medical school in Osaka and acquired his PhD from Nara Medical University which are two different schools. There are many sources that seem to confuse the information, and if I find anything new of interesting on this topic, I provide more comments below.
I encourage you guys, especially any budding medical illustrations or those who want to dabble in the field of medical manga, to check out the last link I have attached. It’s a paper/essay from the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) about Medical Manga and its appearance in America.
Anyway, I hope to see you guys tomorrow ready to learn about a new character!