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Of Vertical, Inc.'s recent repackages of Osamu Tezuka's manga for the U.S. market,
Ode to Kirihito (1970-1971) was generally better received than
MW (1976-1978).[1] Perhaps this fact alone — that of the two works,
Ode was better able to reach to an audience across space and time — proves that
Ode is a more artistically successful work (and I have to concede that
MW's art, while still stunning, doesn't quite reach
Ode's baroque heights).[2] However, of the two[3] I enjoyed
MW much more, partly, I suspect, because neither graphic novel seemed as out of the blue to me as it might have: in college, I had a professor[4] that required his classes to view post-WWII Japanese films such as 1958's
Giants and Toys (a black comedy regarding the human cost of cutthroat capitalism), 1964's Manji (a disturbingly funny take on desperate housewives) and 1969's
Blind Beast (an examination of a full-on Freudian psychosexual relationship as refracted through pop-art-tinged entertainment). These films' freaked-out social commentaries are a precedent to
Ode and
MW.
(Quick summaries:
Ode to Kirihito is about a doctor, Kirihito, who becomes infected with a disease that turns humans animal-like: it's replete with Christian themes.
MW is about the ways in which two survivors react to the leak of the biochemical weapon MW on an island, which killed all of the other occupants: 16 years after the fact, the devious and seductive Michio Yuki decides to systematically destroy everyone responsible and eventually, the world, while Iwao Garai becomes a Catholic priest who alternates between being Yuki's lover and vowing to stop him. Both graphic novels have plenty of adult-oriented shock value.)
I'm sure that that adding material to a graphic novel the length of
MW (which clocks in 582 pages) is an idea that many would not meet with enthusiasm, but
MW would have benefited from some historical contextual material. On p. 37, Garai mentions that the poisoning incident took place near Okinawa, which immediately adds subtext to the story. Okinawa is a collection of once-independent islands. During WWII's Battle of Okinawa, not only were many of its civilians killed by American soldiers, but the Japanese army, at the command of the government, "forc[ed] civilians to commit mass suicide."[5] (To this day, it's a struggle to keep this fact in Japanese textbooks.) Postwar, Okinawa remained under the control of the U.S. Meanwhile, in 1960, Japan and the U.S. entered into the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, AKA by the Japanese as ANPO (which basically exchanged the U.S.'s economic cooperation for Japan's military cooperation), a part of which was the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), in which the U.S. was permitted to station American troops on Japanese soil. Still under the jurisdiction of the U.S., Okinawa was then used by the Army as one of the bases from which to fight the Vietnam War. Okinawa reverted back to Japan in 1972, but the U.S. maintains (not without substantial protest) a concentrated military presence there to this day.
Many have pointed out the anti-American strain (America is coded as "Nation X") that runs through
MW, but in
MW Yuki spends the bulk of his time punishing (via seduction, murder and rape) those Japanese (and their family) who have colluded with the U.S., and benefited from the cover up of the atrocity against their own people: those who not only allowed U.S. troops to continue to be stationed there, but also let Americans dump their deadly gas.
In the course of those punishments, over-the-top bad guy Yuki kills those not culpable of the crimes (Mr. Nanpeidai's son, the banker's daughter Miho), but his disregard for innocence also makes sense in that he was molested as a little boy by Garai on the island the night the gas MW killed all of the other inhabitants: Garai keeps insisting to others that the gas destroyed Yuki's conscience, but it's equally likely the double trauma inspired the latter's nihilism. Significantly, when Garai makes his (religious) confession to a bishop in the beginning of the book about how his wild ways led him to the island, the horror that was committed there and his ongoing relationship with Yuki, he leaves out the part in which he molested Yuki (Yuki reminds Garai of this during a later tryst: Garai does not deny it). When Yuki seduces a military official as part of the master plan, the official unknowingly repeats Garai's words on that fateful night: "You're adorable," he says.
While
Ode's Sister Helen and Kirihito exhibit Christian or Christlike behavior, Garai is more likely to use his priesthood as an excuse (at first he can't turn Yuki over to the police because of the confidentiality of confessions; excommunication is a threat). As such, Garai is really an antihero: not only does he end up assisting Yuki almost as often as he attempts to foil his schemes, but he played no small part in making Yuki who he is.[6] And Tezuka is weirdly fair: in both
Ode and
MW, characters fall in love with their rapists, and Yuki is no exception. Neither Yuki nor Garai alone, as characters, are as interesting as
Ode's Dr. Urabe (who seesaws between hero and villain), but their relationship, to me, coupled with social commentary that is still relevant today, make
MW the more fascinating book.
Notes:
[1] Dates from
http://tezukainenglish.com. The site also contains insightful commentary and context for both works.
[2]
MW can boast
a pretty nifty Aubrey Beardsley homage, though.
[3] Frankly, I just couldn't get into
Apollo's Song.
[4] Earl Jackson, Jr.
[5]
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080329a1.html[6] In fact, if
MW has a hero at all, it's Mr. Meguro, the unlikable investigator who is unable to capture Yuki directly during the climax of the book because he, as per the SOFA agreement, has not jurisdiction on an American military base.
Images ©2007 Tezuka Production, Translation ©2007 Camellia Nieh and Vertical, Inc.
Kristy Valenti currently works for The Comics Journal and Fantagraphics Books, Inc.
Uncharted Territory is © Kristy Valenti, 2010
