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It may or may not be contagious.
There seems to be no cure for it. Yet, Monmow Disease, a life-threatening
condition that transforms a person into a dog-like beast, is not
the only villain in this shocking triumph of a medical thriller
by manga-god Osamu Tezuka. Said to have been the personal favorite
of the artist, who held a degree in medicine, and surprisingly
attentive to Christian themes and imagery, Ode to Kirihito
demolishes naive notions about human nature and health and likely
preconceptions about the comics master himself.
From pregnant vistas of the
Japanese countryside to closed rooms full of sin and redemption,
Tezuka astounds for more than eight hundred continuous pages,
his art in turn easefully concise and flamboyantly experimental,
his inquiry into our most repugnant instincts and prospects for
overcoming them unflinchingly serious. Incorporating elements
of the often lurid and adult-oriented "gekiga"
style for the first time,Tezuka entered into his fruitful late
period with this work.
A promising young doctor, Kirihito
Osanai visits a remote Japanese mountain village to investigate
the source of the latest medical mystery. While he ends up traveling
the world to discover what it takes to be cured of such a disease,
a conspiracy back home attempts to explain away his absence. Hinging
upon his fate are those of his loved ones: an unstable childhood
friend and colleague trapped between factions of the medical establishment
that nurtured him; a fiancee emotionally transformed by Kirihito's
mysterious disappearance; and a stranger who becomes his guardian
angel, a sensual circus-act performer with volatile psychological
secrets.
From plutocratic Taipei and
racially divided South Africa to backwater Syria and modern Osaka,
ambition and desire beckon "normal men" to behave uglier
than any beast. Riveting our attention on deformity and its acceptance
like The Elephant Man by David Lynch, Ode to Kirihito
examines the true worth of human beings through and beyond appearances.
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“Ode
to Kirihito is moving, tender and engrossing.
Also very, very odd.”
– Neil Gaiman,
author of The Sandman and Anansi Boys
“A
thoroughly original, wonderfully bizarre, and compulsively readable
masterwork.
Ode to Kirihito is a vital testament to Tezuka's range
as
an artist, as well as an awe-inspiring example of the possibilities
of the graphic novel.”
– Adrian
Tomine, writer/artist of Optic Nerve
and Summer Blonde
“Tezuka
was like a god for me. He shocked the manga world with the medical
thriller genre, and the work he did it with was Ode to Kirihito
– a monumental suspense masterpiece that shows off Tezuka’s
two points of expertise – manga and medicine.”
– Yoshihiro
Tatsumi, author of The Push-Man and Abandon the Old
in Tokyo
“Tezuka
turns his comic book mastery to evil in this terrifying examination
of moral decay.
Fans of Japanese horror both new and old should not miss this
shocking single volume that will completely change Tezuka's American
reputation as the Japanese Walt Disney. Brutal, depraved and savage,
Kirihito will leave you panting like a beaten dog-man!”
– Andrew D. Arnold,
Time comics critic
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