Disney talk between Rumiko Tezuka & Shiriagari Kotobuki part 2

Manga artist and Tezuka superfan Kotobuki Shiriagari and Tezuka’s daughter and director of Tezuka Productions, Rumiko Tezuka talk about the legacy.
Read part 1

“Second Gen Club” for protecting masterpiece.

K: I hear you occasionally get together with the daughters of other manga artists like Fujio Akatsuka and Fujiko F. Fujio. What do you talk about?
T: Oh, you mean the “Second Gen Club.” It used to be called the “Victimized Kids'Club.” Many children of famous people, myself included, start off with our own careers that get pushed to the way side after we are forced to take over our parents’ work, either because they ask or because they pass away. We end up doing work that our hearts aren’t into, subjecting ourselves to unwelcome comments from all directions, and enduring unnecessary pain and suffering. So the club originally started out as a place where we could vent to each other. These days, we discuss more serious stuff like how to steer our companies or how to preserve our parents’original manuscripts. Most artists draw digitally these days, but works drawn on paper take up a lot of space and gradually deteriorate. They often need to be stored in museum-grade archives.
K: Yes, that’s very important.

T: Also, not all artists had production companies like our parents did. We sometimes invite the relatives of deceased artists to the club and try to give them advice or answer their questions.
K: How many people participate?
T: It fluctuates, but usually over 20 people show up. The network itself is much larger. One day your daughter will inherit your work, Mr. Shiriagari, so please let her know where to find us if she needs help.
K: My manga aren’t worth the trouble. My daughter seems to like manga and anime, but she doesn’t show the slightest interest in my work. (Laughs.)

“I told my dad,‘That’s boring.”

T: I was the same. I read my father’s work when I was little but then stopped once I hit adolescence—I made the mistake of reading Ayako in my first year of middle school and didn’t like that my dad was writing such icky, adult stories. It just wasn’t the person I knew him to be. Of course, this was at the height of his career, when Black Jack and The Three-Eyed One were in serialization, so all my classmates were reading his stuff. At the time, he was trying to cash in on what younger, more popular artists were doing and pitching to readers stuff that—I guess I’ll just say it: stuff he really didn’t need to write. I didn’t want to read it just for the sake of reading it.
K: You were a discerning reader.
T: I don’t know about that. When I was little and my father asked me what I thought of his work, I didn’t hesitate to tell him, “That’s boring.” Maybe daughters are just prone to giving upsetting answers!
K: I’d rather my daughter rip me apart than say nothing at all. When I gave her Hige no OL Yabuuchi Sasako to read, she wouldn’t even comment!

T: Well, she may not comment, but I bet you learn a lot from her just by virtue of living under the same roof.
K: For sure. I sometimes teach at university, which means I have the chance to learn not just from my daughter, but all kinds of young people. They live in a completely different world than us.
T: Yes. I often wish I’d taken more opportunities while my father was alive to tell him about the music or creative professionals I liked. For example, he didn’t know much about rock. I wish I’d given him insight into which musicians were popular.
K: And then he would have incorporated them into his manga.
T: Maybe. But I never shared that stuff with him. It seems my older brother did. I regret not doing the same.
K: I’ll be sure to tell my daughter to educate me if she really cares about me. (Laughs.)

Remaking things to make them appealing to today’s generation

K: Will Tezuka Productions ever create new works the way Disney’s production company does?
T: We don’t have plans to create anything completely new and original. That said, we’ve hired a young illustrator, Tsunogai, to work for us in an official capacity as an artist and writer. She’s a fascinating person. Despite the fact that she’s still in her 20s—which means she never read Tezuka’s works while he was alive—she has an uncanny knack for imitating his style. She created a parody manga, #Konna Black Jack Wa Iya Da. It’s written with a contemporary sensibility, so we hope young readers will read it and enjoy it enough to go back and read the original Black Jack as well.

K: You brought up Tezucomi earlier. That’s kind of a similar experiment.
T: Right. We provide a platform for a variety of artists like you to express your inner Tezuka. It’s so much fun. The comics we end up with are full of originality.
K: Thank you, seriously, for letting me do whatever the heck I want. (Laughs.)
T: Your love for my father shines through. Artists like you with a strong inner Tezuka do a great job evoking him even if you don’t draw or write in the same way. You do more than just a simple parody or homage. In 2019, we made a new anime version of Dororo. The art style is nothing like the original, and yet it was a great chance to reintroduce young people to my father’s work. I think it’s important to keep remaking things in ways today’s generation will find appealing.
K: Keiichi Tanaka is another artist who’s released some parodies of Mr. Tezuka’s work. Are those official?
T: No, we’re not involved with what Mr. Tanaka is doing. (Laughs.)
K: I see. Well, they’re a lot of fun. I must admit I was shocked the first time I saw them, though. I mean, it takes some gall to mock the god of manga!
T: In the old days, artists who were close would do parodies of each other all the time. My father would mess around and put Mr. Akatsuka’s characters in his manga. They were fine with it as long as everyone was having fun.
K: Right. It wasn’t hurting anybody.
T: If anything, Mr. Tanaka has made young people more aware of Tezuka. If that’s how they get to know the real deal, then great. After meeting with him, I realized Mr. Tanaka has seriously researched my father’s style. I’m okay with that.

K: Your company has been very understanding and open-minded about parodies. Mr. Akatsuka’s and Mr. Fujiko’s as well.
T: Well, our parents are gone. It’s just us kids running things now. Most of us don’t want things to be as rigid as they used to be.
K: Good things come from that flexibility.
T: I think so. The whole point of manga is for people to have fun. Maybe that doesn’t hold true for artists writing more serious, dramatic stories. But it’s not as if my father didn’t create his own parodies. Unless people are damaging his characters, we’re not going to go after them for doing the same thing he did. Actually, that’s a lesson I took from Disney.
K: What do you mean?
T: This was a while ago, but Disney published a collection, The Art of Mickey Mouse, featuring drawings of Mickey Mouse by creators from around the world. I saw that and realized it was time to take Astro Boy off his pedestal. Wouldn’t it be great if we got people to draw him with their own unique touch? And that’s how we ended up with the Bokura no Atom [Our Astro Boy] exhibition.

K: Earlier, you mentioned how Mr. Tezuka’s lasting power is part of why young people today still respond to his work. But I think you’re a vital part of it, too. We need people like you who are ready to put in the effort and preserve manga for later generations.
T: You may well be right. There’s an ocean of manga out there, but Tezuka’s work is remembered thirty years after his death because his production company and publishers are fighting to preserve it. The same goes for Disney. You can’t attribute the lasting popularity of their characters to Walt Disney alone. My father once aired this gripe about Disney: “He used to depict eroticism and violence. Why’d he have to go and turn into such a devout humanitarian?” What’s funny is that these days, that’s the impression many people have about Tezuka. That’s why I want to make sure we hand down all of his legacy, including the sensuality and violence in his work.

©Disney