I first encountered Tezuka's work in an academic setting at a Freeman Foundation sponsored workshop on Japan held at Tokai University. I had unknowingly consumed some of his early work when I watched Kimba the White Lion as a child. I think he masterfully engaged me as a child, and his mature works such as Buddha, the Phoenix series, and Swallowing the Earth have proven to be equally enchanting.
The beauty of his mature works is that he artfully lightens heavy existential themes such as love, addiction, power, wealth, mortality, etc. with humor and insight. Swallowing the Earth begins with a mysterious pact to destroy the world of money, law, and men. Modern progressives are likely to be sympathetic to this theme that was hatched in the nineteen sixties. What will happen with this rebellion against the world as it is?
The story unfolds in a way letting us into the motivation for the plot against the world and walks us through the destruction of law through the introduction of synthetic skin that enables those using this product to hide their identity, the flooding of world gold markets with a virtually unlimited supply of gold from a long lost kingdom in the South Pacific, but stumbles as eros threatens the plot to destroy world order.
The synthetic skin functions much like Plato's ring of Gyges functions, and it successfully unleashes a wave of lawlessness. The destruction of wealth by flooding the world with gold displays little understanding of actually functioning markets, but it works to show how the human fixation on monetary fetishes and the loss of those fetishes can be destructive to social order. Long story short, the plot to destroy money and law succeeds.
Will man be destroyed? The problem of eros shows us the possibility of stopping the plot to destroy the world. The outright rejection of man is countered by nature. Female love breaks the bonds that hold the feminist cabal together. The story is structured around this theme.
The man who earns the affection of some of the women in the inner circle of the plot to destroy civilization is an odd fellow. He is an absolute drunk with a superhuman capacity to consume alcohol. This superhuman capacity to consume alcohol is complemented with a superhuman fighting capacity ignited by the alcohol much as Popeye gains superhuman strength by consuming spinach. Most men are manipulated by the feminine seductresses who seek to bring about the unraveling of civilization, but this sole working-class drunkard goes from gig to gig paid for by various quantities of spirits uncovering and almost thwarting the sinister plot. Oddly, his fixation on alcohol and his superhuman feats win at least two conspirators to his cause.
What does this tell us about love? What does this tell us about human existence? The drunkard becomes one of civilization's most effective tools for self-preservation. The disinterested broken man is the most attractive man to at least two women. This entertaining story has a good deal of depth. Our hero fails, but his son conceived with one of the cabal's inner circle goes on a wild rampage amidst the ruins of civilization and will most likely play an important role in rebuilding civilization.
Now this plot occurs with a lot of good humor surrounding sexual themes and the drawing is racy. It also touches upon drug usage, the break down of the family, racial relations, etc. In recent times, people have become sensitive to some stereotypical representation of race in cartoon form, but cartooning is about exaggeration. Tezuka is drawn to the tragedy of human existence and his art may be parochial because of its situatedness in time, but he strives to touch universal themes. His work is rich in humor and easy to digest because of the zaniness of his animations. The problems he touches upon are more complex, but his tragic sense indicates he has grasped the human condition through the medium of manga. There is a reason he is called the god of manga.
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Top reviews from other countries
Donatello Giraudo
Come finirà il nostro mondo.....
Reviewed in Italy on August 8, 2019
