Phoenix, Volume 2: A Tale Of The Future (Phoenix (Viz)) (v. 1) (Paperback)

by Osamu Tezuka (Author, Illustrator)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Chances are readers have never seen anything like this, and not just because it's only now being published in English. Tezuka (1928-1989), known for his manga innovations, considered this series of interlocking stories to be his masterpiece. Viz excellently contextualizes it with essays and an interview with and brief statement by Tezuka. This work, the second of Tezuka's 12 Phoenix books, starts off conventionally enough in the year 3034. Humans have been forced underground by a series of wars, and the remaining population lives in five cities ruled by infallible computers. Young space patrolman Yamanobe is in love with a Moopie (a shape-changing alien) who's taken on the form of a beautiful young woman. When ordered to kill her-Moopies are being exterminated because of their ability to induce hallucinogenic fantasies-Yamanobe flees to the Earth's ravaged surface instead. The cities subsequently blow each other up, and in the ensuing nuclear winter, Yamanobe finds that he's been granted eternal life by the mysterious Phoenix. The story then shifts into high gear: the rest of the book covers not centuries or millennia, but millions of years, as Yamanobe, unable to die and totally alone, watches evolution unfold, from primordial soup to evolved, thinking life forms. Throughout, Tezuka's visual imagination is as stunning as his narrative is ambitious. If readers can get beyond the retro-cute look-the artwork's bold, simple lines might seem overly cartoony given the serious, even metaphysical nature of the story-this is a work guaranteed to blow their minds.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Part of a 12-volume masterwork, Phoenix appeared in Japan in 1969. Each volume can stand alone, and this one is the first to appear in English in its entirety. In 3404, Earth is nearly dead. Everyone lives underground in one of five capitals. Space patrolman Masato lives with his Moopie, a creature that can assume any form (in this case, a beautiful woman), and with whom he has fallen in love. As all Moopies are to be destroyed, he takes her and escapes aboveground, where he crash-lands in a lab. Throughout his adventure, a vision of a phoenix appears and tells Masato that it is up to him to re-create mankind after its impending destruction. He also learns that he has been made immortal, and then lives alone for thousands of years until human civilization can be created anew. This future world, with its weapons of mass destruction and cities full of upwardly mobile trendsetters, brings to mind contemporary society so strongly that teens will immediately be able to relate to the story (and have a hard time believing that it's more than 30 years old). The eternally optimistic phoenix shares its hope for the nature of humanity, and it is drawn with sparks of light surrounding it. The illustrations are reminiscent of those in Tezuka's "Astro Boy" series (Dark Horse). This moving masterpiece is a must for most graphic-novel collections.
Jamie Watson, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: VIZ Media LLC; 1 edition (July 6, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159116026X
• ISBN-13: 978-1591160267
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,069,843 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfection, August 12, 2002

By	Christopher Schumacher (Chicago, Illinois) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Rumiko Takahashi is probably the most celebrated voice of the
last twenty years in the field of manga. These are the same twenty years in which manga has suffered a gradual but steady
decline, resulting in a state where even the best manga is mostly
unreadble, intentionally obtuse and "deep" in a shallow short of
way. The reason is that there is currently no one to match the
sheer power and majesty, not to mention the utter simplicity, of
Osamu Tezuka: the God of manga. Hinotori is undoubtedly his best
work. It is subtle and deep; and fulfills the promise that manga
has always made. This story, though the second in the series, is
also the last chronologically. It tells of the end, and rebirth,
of history. Unfortunately this edition suffers from two problems:
First is the size of the edition. The Japanese and French versions of this comic are presented in much smaller books,
hiding flaws of the work and making the work look more detailed.
That's lost in this full-size presentation. Viz also inexplicably
decided to release the second volume first; dulling a great deal
of the impact we get from the series. The first volume was the
beginning of history, the second volume is the end. This also
makes the end sequence suffer because readers won't understand
that they are seeing the events of the first volume take place
in the next incarnation. I still highly recommend buying this
book despite these reservations. And we can only hope that Viz
will release the rest of the volumes, especially the ones set in
the past, which tend to be the best of the series.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Future is hopeless - but there is hope., August 21, 2004

By	Stuart Winer (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

Osamu Tezuka is a household name in Japan, often refered to as the God of Manga. He started work in the late 1940's and personally invented virtually every part of the visual and storytelling style that are now part of the Manga basic language. He's the Shakespeare of the artform.

Well maybe not. He's was not the greatest true artist out there and sometimes his characters and dialog-tone are too similar from one book to the next. He produced litterally 10 pages per day for many years, and such amazing output makes these foibles more understandable.

But what he does contribute more than anything else is real situations, with suffering and death and unexplained chaos. There's no way to tell where a Tezuka story will move, just like real life. He's not writing with a formula, or writing 'just so' stories where things have to balance. He's far better than that. His people are often shallow, but they have real emotion and convey it very simply and with great precision.

Largely due to Tezuka's influence over other writers and artists Manga became a major Japanese cultural export to the entire East Asian region. He was by far the most famous person in his artform for many decades and when he died in 1989 the whole Japanese nation mourned his passing.

These Mangas, especially the Pheonix series which was written for adults, make a an over-arching statement about the nature of the world & how he sees a cycle of hope and destruction and rebirth. One reads Tezuka and automatically thinks 'this is about something deeper than what's on the page..what is he trying to say here?'.

In this book, which documents the end of the world and humanity and then it's rebirth in the very distant future, the Phoenix takes her chosen human servant on a journey through the microverse and the macroverse, showing it to be a place of vibrant life and spiritual energy.

It was both incredibly ambitious and very moving - I felt transformed by reading it - that this wasn't just a comic - that this was a worldview that was real and which could be conveyed successfully through this artform.

Although many artists have since come along who are more gifted than Tezuka and a few of his more recent Manga peers are at least his equal in other ways (Hayao Miyazaki), I can think of none who would pursue such an unusual and central human theme in this way, with such directness and with the talent to succeed. That's why he's the God of Manga. He will be in print for centuries to come.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A DYING EARTH, September 14, 2003

By	Sesho "www.sesho.libsyn.com" (Pasadena, TX USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

In the year 3404 A.D., the earth and its civilizations are on their last legs. There are only 5 human cities left and those have moved underground where, in an effort to stem despair, they have been dubbed the "eternal capitals". Enter Space Patrolman Masato who is in love with a shape-shifting and mind altering alien named Tamimi. Her race has been outlawed on Earth because the authorities fear that humans, if subjected to the moopie dream state, will become lethargic lotus eaters.

Masato is ordered to kill Tamimi but refuses and flees with her to the surface world where they run into the hermit Dr. Saruta, a brillant scientist whose vision of a flaming phoenix might just hold the future rebirth of a new Earth within it. In the meantime, Masato's old boss, Roc, becomes obsessed with hunting down the fugitives.

Some of the blurbs on this book refer to it as "mind-blowing" and "awesome" etc., like the effect of a psychadelic drug. While I wouldn't go that far, Phoenix does go a long way past 99% of comics being produced today. While it takes a bit to get used to the cartoonish figures within, it really grabs a hold of you. Tezuka is trying to craft an almost future history of the Earth with deep philisophical themes which make the characters at the beginning of the book seem almost trivial. On the other hand, it strengthens the relationship between Masato and Tamimi by showing the fragility of human life when compared to the life of a universe.

I admire Tezuka for attempting to grapple with such deep issues in a comic form. This book is actually the 2nd volume of a 12 volume series which is only just now being published in America.