The good Bad, the Ugly bad and the totally bad.

[dannavy85]

In Tezuka's comic world, bad is not always bad. He seemed to have a knack for grey shading the elements that seperate the "super bad" from the "bad but why?" characters in his stories. Among his works the 3 Adolfs seems to cullminate Tezuka's life long study of what can rate as true evil and why evil ends up as it does. So too he explains the concepts of dealing with bad characters and in some ways shows that bad characters in some cases are actually good in a few ways.

Now Skunk...forget it, this guy is all bad. Seems he has two fixations in life, turn Asto into scrap and make money, money, money....mostly thru stealing everything else.

Then we have the occasional "bad supporting character we love to love." Those poor characters who went astray through some external mishap only to at last see the errors of their ways before their one show, one shot scene into bad character redeemed heaven. Poor Atlas 2003, a perfect example of a life wasted by the acts of his father.

Then there's " I'm bad, I make you hate me but damn I need you" characters. In the 1985 Kimba remake there's Keralu Maldei (A lion cub of a nearby Lion King near Kimba's kingdom) That is your typical bothersome bully with an ego level aproaching cess pool stench. He hates Kimba, actually he's infatuated with extreme jeliously and always takes it out on his poor twin brother Ninji. But though he speaks about ripping Kimba's hide to shreds, Keralu ends up saving our white fur coat hero time and time again because...

"If you die...my life will become dull!" He actually says this in one episode.

The nice thing about Tezuka's ability to "gray" the bad guys and girls in his comics, it makes them exciting. Who doesn't hate the same old "Scar" type character who's just totally evil with no interesting background. At least we know Skunk was all bad from school on out, a drop out who worships Al Capone and schemes for the day he can do a St. Valentines Day on Astro Boy. Hey even the local mad scientst has some interesting background he throws out during the manga at some point.

Tezuka's bad characters...you gotta end up liking them in the end right?

[jeffbert]

Originally posted by dannavy85@Jul 25 2004, 11:27 AM
In Tezuka's comic world, bad is not always bad. He seemed to have a knack for grey shading the elements that seperate the "super bad" from the "bad but why?" characters in his stories. Among his works the 3 Adolfs seems to cullminate Tezuka's life long study of what can rate as true evil and why evil ends up as it does. So too he explains the concepts of dealing with bad characters and in some ways shows that bad characters in some cases are actually good in a few ways.

Now Skunk...forget it, this guy is all bad. Seems he has two fixations in life, turn Asto into scrap and make money, money, money....mostly thru stealing everything else.

Then we have the occasional "bad supporting character we love to love." Those poor characters who went astray through some external mishap only to at last see the errors of their ways before their one show, one shot scene into bad character redeemed heaven. Poor Atlas 2003, a perfect example of a life wasted by the acts of his father.

Then there's " I'm bad, I make you hate me but damn I need you" characters. In the 1985 Kimba remake there's Keralu Maldei (A lion cub of a nearby Lion King near Kimba's kingdom) That is your typical bothersome bully with an ego level aproaching cess pool stench. He hates Kimba, actually he's infatuated with extreme jeliously and always takes it out on his poor twin brother Ninji. But though he speaks about ripping Kimba's hide to shreds, Keralu ends up saving our white fur coat hero time and time again because...

"If you die...my life will become dull!" He actually says this in one episode.

The nice thing about Tezuka's ability to "gray" the bad guys and girls in his comics, it makes them exciting. Who doesn't hate the same old "Scar" type character who's just totally evil with no interesting background. At least we know Skunk was all bad from school on out, a drop out who worships Al Capone and schemes for the day he can do a St. Valentines Day on Astro Boy. Hey even the local mad scientst has some interesting background he throws out during the manga at some point.

Tezuka's bad characters...you gotta end up liking them in the end right?

"Now Skunk...forget it, this guy is all bad."

Skunk is merely one of Tezuka's many 'actors.'