So here’s what I’m thinking: Yesterday I put up a post in which I talked about Osamu Tezuka’s science fiction trilogy, three manga that he wrote early in his career. In that post – which also included discussions of two of the premier texts of English literature, “Kubla Khan” and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – I argued that the trilogy emerged from a conceptual and emotional crisis brought on by Japan’s defeat in World War II. Yet – and here’s the thing – Tezuka wrote those stories for children. Not the youngest children, but certainly 9 or 10 year olds. The story had to absorb and interest them. Yet it also had to absorb and interest a sophisticated young adult, Tezuka himself, in the process of working through deep and fundamental issues in his life world.
How’s that possible? To create texts that speak to two such disparate audiences? Or are they that different? Where’s the point where the adult issues met the childhood issues? Tezuka’s texts – and many others. Obviously. But how’s that work?
See also:
The Robot as Subaltern: Tezuka's Mighty Atom
Ponyo for Adults
Universal Kid Space
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