What would you do if I told you that there is a manga that has its roots in the topoi di Frankenstein, set in 1970s Japan. A manga that is about genetic experiments, racism, revenge and who harshly criticized the society of those years? What if I told you that this progenitor of a more modern Baoh had been made by Osamu Tezuka? You would run to buy it right away, wouldn’t you?
And you would do well, not only because great geniuses like Tezuka and Nagai are still today, after 40/50 years, extremely current, but because a look at the past filtered through the stories of the great storytellers always leads to a result.: discover that the past differs from us only in technical complexity and tools, but the narrative strength, the ideas and the impact that these elements can have on the reader are always the same. Alabaster is an excellent appointment with the classic of Japanese comics, an essential reading if you want to understand the history and the importance that certain works or authors have had and will continue to have in the years to come.
- Original title: Arabastaa ア ラ バ ス タ ー
- English title: Alabaster
- Japanese release: 1970 – 1971
- Italian release: June 15, 2022
- Number of volumes: 2 (in progress)
- Publishing house: J-POP Manga
- Genre: Thriller
- Drawings: Osamu Tezuka
- History: Osamu Tezuka
- Format: Paperback with dust jacket
- Number of pages: 271
We reviewed Alabaster via press volume provided to us by J-POP Manga.
Invisible but only on the surface
The work tells of the life of James Block, a famous Afro-descendant Olympian, immersed in a deeply racist culture. One day he receives a big rejection from a girl because of the color of her skin. This prompts him to commit a crime and he soon ends up in prison. It is there that James meets a mysterious doctor who reveals the location of an invention that could literally change his life.
Years pass and when James gets out of prison, he first recovers the doctor’s invention: a gun capable of making everything that its beam touches invisible.the same invention that will transform James into Alabaster, the man with transparent skin. In this new invisible guise filled with anger and revenge, James will start a real war against all that is beautiful. His physical skills as an athlete and the monstrous appearance of him will make him a feared criminal and soon Alabaster will become one of the most wanted men in the world, a real danger to human institutions.
A mosaic about human revenge
The predominant themes of the work emerge with strength and a great critical spirit. They are not brought out with reflections or with off-screen voices that mirror reality, but inherent in the very reality of events, shown with facts and immersed in the situations of James Block’s extraordinary everyday life. Narrating is, for Tezuka, a way to build a profound social criticism (in the same years Nagai’s Devilman himself brought very similar criticisms), a critique that shows the horrors of a society that tends towards justice but that is lost on the way to achieve it. It also affects extreme rawness with which situations of injustice are staged, from racism to gratuitous violence, up to the revenge that literally makes the protagonist obsessed.
However, what makes the portrait he wants to give to society really interesting and makes it, in my opinion, so real and current, is the fact that Tezuka does not stop to construct a simple representation, but delves into the motivations and terrible consequences that injustice incessantly produces rebound. Thus showing how the injustices of a society poison hearts and create in the same way a cycle that seems to have no end. In Alabaster there is no good, there are only innocents who have not yet been corrupted.
The injustices that James will suffer as an Afro-descendant will then rebuild his morals, he will come to use some young boys to start a war against literally “all that is beautiful”, a war that can only result in chaos and destruction. The story of Alabaster therefore follows the origins of what could be a villain more than a heroof a man who, by now having a disintegrated life, wants to return the favor to that world he despises so much.
The china of the manga god
The Tezuka stretch is school. Recognizable from tens of meters away. A trait that, despite carrying the limits of the historical period, has excellent aspects and a phenomenal cleanliness. Starting to analyze the bodies and the design of the characters, Tezuka is unmistakable in its roundness, in its synthetic trait and in the ability to simply implement very complex ideas. The clean lines and designs accompanied by a cartoon aesthetic can only remember Disney and the animated products of the American giant. The reasons are many and have their roots in the relationship and in the exchange of views that Tezuka had with Walt Disney himself, on which I also wrote a dedicated article.
Another graphic aspect that I would like to discuss and that I have incredibly appreciated is the drawing of the backgrounds and landscapes, extremely detailed compared to that of the bodies of the characters but which integrates very well in terms of style without risking to cause contrast. An organic and amalgamated style. A note of merit and great appreciation must also be made for two important elements: the carsbeautiful, detailed and gorgeous, and the waves of the searepresented in an extremely fluid and shiny way.
What is beauty? Alabaster, the disfigured protagonist of this manga, does not have a precise answer. But he knows that behind what society deems “beautiful” lies hypocrisy and squalor, and he is determined to tear this mask of falsehood to make his vengeance against the world. Armed with a device capable of literally uncovering what we hide, this cynical criminal will spare no one in his crusade … One of Osamu Tezuka’s darkest and most merciless works returns, born in a period in which work difficulties and the changing tastes of the public pushed the Master to explore new horizons.
Buy Alabaster following this link at the special price of € 13.30 (instead of € 14.00). Available from June 15, 2022. Support Akiba Gamers by purchasing the manga on Amazon through this box!
Finally, let’s talk a little about paneling. Being a comic from the 70s, we certainly cannot expect great experiments. However, from a historical point of view, it is important to note how Tezuka begins to mention attempts to break up the cagethe massive use of splash pages that change the rhythm, which will be the basis on which the Japanese authors will later develop the characteristic defragmented cage typical of modern manga.
The volume J-POP
The manga is part of the J-POP series Osamushi Collection, a series dedicated entirely to the author. First it is important to note the work of graphic organicity between all the volumes and series of the series same that make it a real treat for collectors and for those who love a tidy and beautiful bookcase to look at.
Regarding the volume itself, of course we cannot complain. Paperback with satin dust jacket, a pleasure to touch, a smooth paper on which the cleanliness of the Tezuka stretch emerges and a layout that gives the volume a vintage flavor. The notes compartment is detailed and clearin fact, it allows you to enter the world of the author with ease, an author not only distant in time but also culturally, and guarantees easy access both to big fans and to those who discover the master for the first time.
Who do we recommend Alabaster to?
Alabaster it is not a work for nostalgics only. Its aesthetics and the historical location of the comic make it a perfect mirror capable of explaining and defining today’s standards. A work studded with social criticism, which overturns the classic subdivision between good and evil and appears raw in sharp contrast with the graphic sector tending to the roundness and delicacy of the stroke Disney. Alabaster is a work for those who want to deepen the path of a geniusexactly like the Devilman by Nagai allows you to make a comparison with our era and understand how forms, methods and tools change, but the heart always remains the same, encapsulated and kept more or less alive in the editorial storm that now represents the manga market.
- Excellent landscape graphics
- Very profound social criticism
- Great volume of J-POP
- Younger readers may struggle with 70s narrative and graphic aesthetics
Alabaster
A morality full of nuances
Alabaster it is one of the most controversial and crude works of the master Tezuka. The ability to narrate the genesis of a character who is in effect a villain and to which the author confers a number of impressive shades. A manga of half a century ago capable of creating a fluid, non-divisive morality, all conveyed by a simple and linear narrative, with a basic horizontal structure but which develops through a series of semi-self-conclusive episodes. A profound thought emerges, a great reflection on the relativity of beautyon the canons and horrors that only an unjust majority is capable of creating.
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