Phoenix (manga)


Phoenix is an unfinished manga series by Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka considered Phoenix his "life's work"; it consists of 12 books, each of which tells a separate, self-contained story and takes place in a different era. The plots go back and forth from the remote future to prehistoric times. The story was never completed, having been cut short by Tezuka's death in 1989. Several of the stories have been adapted into anime series and OVAs, and even a live-action movie. As of 2007, the entire manga series is available in English-language translations.

Overview

Phoenix is about reincarnation. Each story generally involves a search for immortality, embodied by the blood of the eponymous bird of fire, which, as drawn by Tezuka, resembles the Fenghuang. The blood is believed to grant eternal life, but immortality in Phoenix is either unobtainable or a terrible curse, whereas Buddhist-style reincarnation is presented as the natural path of life.
The stories spring back and forth through time; the first, Dawn, takes place in ancient times, and the second, Future, takes place in the far future. Subsequent stories alternate between the past and future, allowing Tezuka to explore his themes in both historical and science fiction settings. Throughout the stories there are various recurring characters, some from Tezuka's famous star system. A character named Saruta appears repeatedly, for example, in the form of various ancestors and descendants, all of whom endure harsh trials in their respective eras.
Tezuka began work on a preliminary version of Phoenix in 1954, and the series continued in various forms until his death in 1989. As it progresses, the stories seemed to be converging on the present day. Due to Tezuka dying before the manga's completion, it is not known how this would have played out. Scholar and translator Frederik L. Schodt, who knew Tezuka in life, wrote that he fantasized about a secret ending, "waiting in a safe somewhere to be revealed posthumously." This was not the case, and Tezuka's final intentions with Phoenix remain unknown; its episodic nature leaves each volume highly accessible nonetheless.
Many of the Phoenix stories feature an intensely experimental layout and visual design. For example, Universe tells the story of four spacefarers who are forced to leave their spaceship in separate escape pods. The panels of the story are organized such that each character has his own vertical or horizontal tier on the page, emphasizing the astronauts' isolation; the tiers combine and separate as characters join together and split up. In an astonishing sequence after one character's death, he is represented for a number of pages by a series of empty black panels.
Tezuka was said to have been influenced to create the series after listening to the music of Igor Stravinsky. He also told that he created the image of Phoenix as he was impressed by the Firebird in director Ivan Ivanov-Vano's animation film Konyok Gorbunok.

Arcs

After several aborted attempts at a first chapter in the 1950s, Tezuka began Dawn in 1967, serialized in COM. The serialization of Phoenix would continue throughout his career, moving to Manga Shōnen after COM's closure in the mid-70s. The final volume, Sun, was serialized in The Wild Age.
;Dawn
;Future
;Yamato
;Universe
;Hō-ō
;Resurrection
;Robe of Feathers
;Nostalgia
;Turbulent Times
;Life
;Strange Beings
;Sun
;Early Works

Characters

;Dawn
;Resurrection
;Strange creatures
;Sun
;Future
Several volumes of Phoenix were adapted into anime. The best-known feature film, Phoenix 2772, loosely adapts elements from various Phoenix volumes and other Tezuka works. Two OVAs and an animated movie were released in the late 1980s. A 13-episode TV adaptation also aired in 2004 in Japan, and was released in English in October 2007 by Anime Works.

Live-action film

A live-action film entitled Hi no Tori, based on the Dawn storyline, directed by Kon Ichikawa and including some animated sequences directed by Tezuka, was released in 1978. The cast included Tomisaburo Wakayama and Tatsuya Nakadai. It was released in the United States on VHS by Video Action under the cover title The Phoenix in 1982, using a subtitled print, letterboxed only in the split-screen sequence. To date, the film is available on DVD only in Spain, where it is titled Fénix. The film included a brief appearance by Astro Boy, substituting for another character to illustrate his attempts to get on a horse. The score was co-composed by Michel Legrand and Jun Fukamachi. IMDb.
A MSX adaptation of Karma was created by Konami. The Phoenix also made a cameo appearance in the 2003 Astro Boy series and 2004 game for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, along with a number of other Tezuka characters.
As of 21 June 2017, the anime has premiered in Jamaica on CVM Television.

Episode list

No.TitleOriginal airdate

Publication

English edition

Phoenix is published in English by Viz Communications. Although the second volume was initially published by the now defunct Pulp manga anthology in a larger edition, in 2002, Viz took over the rest of the manga series, and re-released the second volume. At the time, Frederik Schodt had only translated 4-5 of the books, and was still working on the remainder of the series. Viz completed the series in March 2008. It has been criticized for being a dumbing-down, including overlapping artwork with unnecessary new narration, and altering character names to make their reincarnations more obvious to the reader. However, Tezuka was known to update his manga every few years; so the U.S. version could reflect the last known edition of the series.
The Viz editions are released "flipped". Some of the shorter stories have been consolidated into one book, and Troubled Times has been split across two; this resulted in each Viz book having a similar page count. While many of the actual Viz books are out of print, they recently became available again through digital purchase on Kindle. Viz later offered the digital version of Phoenix manga on 2014.

Volumes in English

;Vol. 1 – Dawn
;Vol. 2 – A Tale of the Future / Future
;Vol. 3 – Yamato / Space
;Vol. 4 – Karma
;Vol. 5 – Resurrection
;Vol. 6 – Nostalgia
;Vol. 7 – Civil War, Part 1
;Vol. 8 – Civil War, Part 2 / Robe of Feathers
;Vol. 9 – Strange Beings / Life
;Vol. 10 – Sun, Part 1
;Vol. 11 – Sun, Part 2
;Vol. 12 – Early Works

Video games

The Resurrection arc of Phoenix inspired the lyrical theme of the 2018 song "M.D.O." by heavy metal band Lovebites.
In celebration of what would have been Tezuka's 90th birthday, Evil Line Records released the compilation album New Gene, Inspired from Phoenix on October 30, 2019. It features songs inspired by Phoenix written and performed by various artists, including Glim Spanky, Kizuna AI, Tavito Nanao and Naotarō Moriyama.