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With February 9th coming up (the anniversary of his death in 1989) in your own reflections, what do you think about Osamu Tezuka? With his later emphasis being on leaving behind a legacy built on education and sharing profound knowledge, is there anything you can say you learned from his life's work?

It is hard to whittle down what is amazing about Tezuka to a single post, however one aspect really stands apart for me; namely that while he had strong ideals, he was not an idealist. Among his major works we see humanity coming to terms with the the most sorrowful circumstances, often pitting everything we hold as dear against a cruel world. What I feel is that we can't put our values and ideals in a little box, in isolation and expect them to have any real meaning. This is so incredibly different than the standard western approach where we couldn't imagine our cute little animal heroes getting shot at by machine guns, or robots who want nothing more than to aid humanity being enslaved and eventually scrapped. Tezuka demands we live by these values and visions, but does not pretend for the slightest moment that it will be easy, or even that our values will not change. This must seem ironic to some, perhaps picking up a volume of Buddha which reads 'Every life is sacred' on the back cover, yet contained within is countless death and trajedy. I am reminded of P.K. Dick's short story, "Human is", which is to say that throughout Tezuka's stories, he is asking us to be human, to think of what it means to be not just physically a human being, but spiritually a human being as well.

I think the most wonderful things about Tezuka was his openess to his fans and his emphasis in placing some form of educational value in every manga series he did, he was certainly a pioneer in taking comics and cartoons from just plain entertainment candy to a social influence medium.

They say his aids had trouble getting him to keep appointments and schedules because he spent so much time stopping to draw some picture for a giggling child or hopeful adult. He even prevented his expulsion from Osaka University when the professor complained about his Manga moonlighting during classes. He paid the man off by drawing a short manga comic of "Lost World" for the man's grand-daughter.

It seemed as he grew more in fame, Tezuka grew more in simple kindness. He never charged money for his fan artwork like today's creeps do at places like the San Diego Comic Con, he was by far the most mild manored and easy going person to talk too and he loved his fans who loved him so much.

I loved Kimba the White Lion, I loved the stories, the virtues, the morals, the characters. You don't see cartoons like that now I don't think. It's been almost 35 years now since I watched Kimba on NBC and I still remember episodes. It's the way Tezuka presented the story that gives it perminance.

And then there's the library in Takarazuka, what a humble place. Tezuka when speaking of his dear mother mentioned her deep emotional drive on education, the never ending river upon which a soild boat can carry the passenger to a boundless future. A library or an amusement trap, which at the end of the day will have the greater impact?

Indeed, there went one of the most honest, beloved and wisest men who ever walked the earth.

I've learned that...
ROBOTS MUST BE BROUGHT DOWN NOW BEFORE THEY GET A WILL OF THEIR OWN!
Okay, seriously I havn't read a GREAT deal of his work other than Astroboy, but in the few that I have read, I loved one non-Astroboy manga I read *sorry, don't remember the title but Mustachio was in it* where this scientist is trying to warn the world leaders of an alien invasion but the leaders are so busy being mad at each other and getting ready for meaningless wars that they don't listen and end up being unprepared for the attack. The message he seemed to give about how if we spend our time angry at each other over little things, something even bigger will end up destroying us. Fighting each other over stupid little things is pointless when bigger, more greater threats that can only be gotten through by working together are approaching.