ABSTRACT
Tezuka Osamu (1928–1989) has been regarded as one of the most influential creators of manga both inside and outside Japan, earning him the title Japan’s “God of Manga.” However, his beloved series, such as Kimba the White Lion (Janguru Taitei, 1950–1954) and Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atomu, 1952–1968), present a reductive view of his narrative and creative contributions to Japanese comics. In a career spanning over four decades, Tezuka authored countless works drawn in part from his experiences of coming of age in wartime and Occupation-era Japan. This chapter explores the intersections of Japanese identity and war memory in one of these lesser-known works from the latter half of Tezuka’s career, his Holocaust-themed World War II epic Message to Adolf (Adorufu ni tsugu, 1983–1985). It argues that Tezuka uses the Holocaust as a prism through which to critique the unattainability of “Japaneseness,” an imagined and essentialized form of cultural uniqueness, for outliers who possess a liminal relationship to Japan. Through this manga, Tezuka condemns wartime ideologies on a global scale, yet, owing to his upbringing, cannot fully dissociate Japanese identity from the corrosive specter of war.
