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Sunday, August 12, 2007

Book Review #2: Apollo's Song

Apollo's Song by Osamu Tezuka

We went to this manga show at the Asian Art Museum here in San Francisco a few weeks ago. Chris, of course, was easily pursuaded to go on this outing with me and Bill due to the subject matter at hand. I, personally, love the Asian Art Museum. The sculptures of the Bodhisattvas and Hindu gods on the top floor are my favorite.

I didn't think I'd be so interested in the Osamu Tezuka exhibit. Nothing I'd ever heard about Astro Boy (which isn't much) enticed me to want to learn more. As you may see from the wikipedia entry for Tezuka, he's also recognized as the Japanese Walt Disney. Yawn. After reviewing some of the first pieces in the exhibit from Metropolis, I suspected there was something a little twisted about this artist. The robot in the story, Michi, appears to switch genders at will, as far as I can tell, and thinks s/he is human. Hmm.

Luckily, I didn't have to dig very far into Tezuka's work to find some interesting perversion. After taking a good look at all the drawings in the show, I decided that I would head promptly to the museum store and purchase a copy of Human Metamorphosis, the story of "the ruthless and seductive Tomura...the mistress of reinvention...[who] leaves a path of destruction in her wake." It's not in print, apparently, so I had to settle for Apollo's Song, the story of a young man named Shogo whose punishment for "disrespecting the sanctity of love" is to be cursed to fall in love over and over again but never be allowed to have sex with the women he falls in love with.

Torturous, I tell you. The fantastical scenarios Tezuka invents for his doomed non-lovers are perfectly gutwrenching, as well. He intertwines the various stories using a good old-fashioned play-within-a-play technique, making it difficult to tell which reality is, well, real, but it barely matters. The stories always end the same way, but the different journeys to that ultimate destination get pretty wacky. Maybe the turns in the timeline attempt to trick the reader into thinking that there may be some hope for poor Shogo. Spoiler alert. There is none.

This adventure isn't completely sexless, however. The prologue of the book, describes Shogo's conception from the perspective of the sperm and the egg. I guess this could be an appropriate telling of 'where do babies come from' for a Disney-aged audience. The sentiment of the prologue - echoed at the very end of the book - is very family friendy, but it only half-jives with the actual plot:

Nature divides us into male and female; we come together and create offspring for posterity. As long as the world exists, men, women, and the children they bear will repeat this endless drama day after day...

Shogo's story sure repeats, alright, but without the coming together part...and lots of death...lots of little deaths?

But I lied when I said there is no hope for Shogo. He redeems himself in every story each time he opens himself up to the people around him despite each of his previous heartbreaks. Maybe the story is more about how love heals Shogo and how even humans in the worst of circumstances will fight to be together no matter the inevitable tragedy.

Labels: books, comics, japan, manga, San Francisco, sex