Plot: During World War II, the existence of a mysterious bombshell Zephyrus is revealed, along with the rumour that even seeing her can drive a man mad with desire. Then in the early sixties, her seven daughters - all whom look just like her - have spread out all over the world to seduce men, eventually crippling the world to take revenge for their mother's misery. Gohonmatsu Seki is selected to try and hunt her down, him being chosen as the only man in Japan with no interest in women...since the guy lives just to drink sake. Along the way, people have business with Gohonmatsu, and one of Zephyrus's daughters just might love him, even if she's supposed to help destroy the world...
Review: It's a wild ride. Tezuka deals with society, greed, government, and gender and racial inequality all throughout it, and Gohonmatsu and company bounce all over the place. It's certainly interesting, especially when you consider this was the work Tezuka made to transition into adult manga. His art here is creative and fluid, great as always, and it's worth mentioning this:
In this scene early on in the book, Gohonmatsu's fencing a guy with a beard on a ship, and it's rocking back and forth violently as they do so. I loved the crap out of Gohonmatsu...he's this brawny, goofball guy who just flows with the wild circumstances dealt to him (or effortlessly punching them out), usually wondering when he's gonna relax and have a few (dozen) drinks next. Some of you might be annoyed by his personality (and the fact that two different women want him), but for me, I connected with him faster than I did with the other main characters in Tezuka's adult works. He's a doofy guy who gets down to business when crap really hits the fan.
Since this was Tezuka's transitional period, he's got a lot of gags mixed in throughout, which mixed well with the darker parts of the story, until the happier part of the story is ripped out, like a carpet underneath your feet, and you're left running across the dark, dark place the story has gone to. The ending isn't all bleak, but it certainly gives you one good period of "ohhhhh" when you see exactly what Zephyrus's plan was.
Objectionable Content: You will see topless women, and sexual content (graphic scenes either shown with blobby silhouettes or vague implications) throughout the book. What I feel I should bring up immediately is how in the story, a synthetic skin suit is created, and it becomes all the rage in America, where African-American people put it on and pretend to be Caucasian so they can fit in more. Looking back, that was weird as crap. Oh Tezuka...you meant well, but if you only had an Internet in your day, you'd get the full details on the Civil Rights Movement...
Oh, and people do die or get attacked, but not as graphically. Somebody gets crushed by the side of a boat, but his body is never shown. Keep in mind that there's some bloody bits here and there, but it's all on the same level as Black Jack.
The Book: I was pretty happy to see it printed right-to-left in its original format, unlike how Vertical still flips things like Ayako and MW to appeal them to an adult comic-reading audience. The only objections I have are how the fonts for speech and sound effects look a little too toony...
...Which is fine early on, but when you get to the more serious parts of the story, it looked like the comic-esque font home-based scanlators use. Also the pages are kind of thin, and could be compared to those of the old Babysitter's Club books from the eighties. Other than that, this is a pretty good translation and printing, and I loved reading this book along with a good deal of the characters.
I'd easily recommend it...this is only the case if you're fifteen or older. Fourteen is the absolute youngest a person would have to be before I gave them this book.
So! Has anyone else read this yet?
I don't know how big your city is, but it sounds like one of those in Ontario or New York that are so big, there's city-sized neighborhoods inside cities...
