Osamu Tezuka's manga MW was originally published in twenty-six chapters in Biggu Komikku (Big Comic) magazine between 1976 and 1978.
Not as well-known as Tezuka's works for younger audiences, such as Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion, MW deals with mature themes that English-speaking manga fans may not readily associate with the so-called God of Manga.
The Story of Osamu Tezuka's MW
MW's central character is Michio Yuki, younger brother of a famous Kabuki star. As a child, he had been kidnapped by a gang of delinquents on a remote island where a secret nerve agent, called MW, was being stored by a foreign (read American) military.
The MW gas was accidentally released, killing all the inhabitants of the island, except for Yuki and Iwao Garai, one of Yuki's captors. Yuki's exposure to the gas left him a psychopath, and fifteen years later, his exposure to it is slowly killing him too.
The charismatic Yuki embarks on a path of social climbing, kidnapping, blackmail, and murder. At first Garai, now a Catholic priest tormented by his guilt as Yuki's confessor and lover, thinks Yuki is seeking revenge on those who were behind the MW accident and covered it up.
But as Yuki's schemes become more daring, Garai and Meguro, a prosecutor on Yuki's trail, become convinced that Yuki is after MW itself.
MW Among Osamu Tezuka's Darker Manga
As its story suggests, MW is not a manga for children. Tezuka depicts Yuki's psychopathic acts of rape and murder with graphic frankness, and there are a number of adult themes which pervade the comic.
Most notable is the complex homosexual relationship between Yuki and Garai. The genre of shounen ai, or male-male romance manga, is not one in which Tezuka regularly worked. Likewise, Roman Catholicism is rare in Tezuka's manga, but its doctrine gives Garai an added source of torment.
On the other hand, Osamu Tezuka's style in MW, a blend of cartoon caricature and detailed realism, is consistent with his other works. Yet it pushes some boundaries nonetheless.
For example, the character Shunsaku Ban, who appears in other Tezuka manga such as Astro Boy, even has a small part – but in MW he gets horribly mutilated. Also, MW's fourth chapter has a sequence between Yuki and Garai clearly modeled after the Victorian artist Aubrey Beardsley's homoerotic work.
New Versions of MW
Many manga epics are the basis for later anime projects, but Tezuka's MW was never adapted into an animated film. However, a live-action version of the story was released in Japan in 2009 to mixed reviews.
MW was unavailable in an English translation for many years (western readers had to make do with French or Italian editions). Vertical, Inc., a publisher of translated Japanese books, released MW in English in 2007, over thirty years since the manga's original Japanese serialization. The English version is complete in one hardcover volume.
Like Buddha and Adolf, two of Osamu Tezuka's mature works also available in translation, MW deals with complex, adult issues. But its controversial subject matter shouldn't deter western fans of the manga master.
Luke Arnott - Luke Arnott has a Master's Degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Western Ontario, where he is currently enrolled in the ...
Join the Conversation