Osamu Tezuka and His Works: A Bibliography of English-Language Scholarly/Academic Publications

By type:
Books — Collections — Book Chapters — Journal Articles

[switch to: By year of publication]

Books
(Total published: 4)

Ladd, Fred, with Harvey Deneroff. Astro Boy and anime come to America: An insider’s view of the birth of a pop culture phenomenon. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

McCarthy, Helen. The art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga. New York: Abrams ComicArts.

Onoda Power, Natsu. God of comics: Osamu Tezuka and the creation of post-World War II manga. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Schodt, Frederik. The Astro Boy essays: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the manga/anime revolution. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press.

Collections
(T0tal published: 2)

Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts
Volume 8 – Tezuka’s Manga Life

Each annual volume of Mechademia is centered around a common theme. The 2013 volume contains 18 original essays on Tezuka’s life, comics, anime, and other projects, a translation of two chapters originally published in 1992 in a Japanese book on Tezuka, an original short manga that Tezuka created, and two other manga that use him as an inspiration.

Brophy, Philip (ed.). Tezuka: The marvel of manga. Victoria, Australia: National Gallery of Victoria.

Book Chapters
(Total published: 31)

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Aditia, P., et al. Legends come alive: Preserving the visual idiom based on Osamu Tezuka’s Paidon.
In B. Aulia, et al. (eds.). Embracing the future: Creative industries for environment and Advanced Society 5.0 in a post-pandemic era (pp. 225-229). Leiden, The Netherlands: CRC Press.

Atkinson, Rosalind. A Japanese Blake: Embodied visions in William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790) and Tezuka Osamu’s Phoenix (1967-88).
In Alex Watson & Laurence Williams (eds.), British Romanticism in Asia: The reception, translation, and transformation of Romantic literature in India and East Asia (pp. 314-360). Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.

Benzon, William. Dr. Tezuka’s ontology laboratory and the discovery of Japan.
In Timothy Perper and Martha Cornog (Eds.), Mangatopia: Essays on manga and anime in the modern world (pp. 37-52). Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Brophy, Philip. Osamu Tezuka’s gekiga: Behind the mask of manga.
In Toni Johnson-Woods (Ed.), Manga: An anthology of global and cultural perspectives (pp. 128-136). New York: Continuum.

Chow, Kenny K.N. From haiku and handscroll to Tezuka: Refocusing space and camera in the narrative of animation.
In Masao Yokota and Tzu-yue G. Hu (Eds.), Japanese animation: East Asian perspectives (pp. 183-195). Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.

Gan, Sheuo Hui. Prefiguring the future: Tezuka Osamu’s adult animation and its influence on later animation in Japan.
In Joel David (Ed.), Proceedings of the Whither the Orient: Asians in Asia and non-Asian Cinema conference (pp. 178-191). Seoul: Asia Future Initiative.
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Gibson, Alicia. Astro Boy and the Atomic Age.
In Josef Steiff and Tristan D. Tamplin (Eds.), Anime and philosophy: Wide eyed wonder (pp. 181-191). Chicago: Open Court.

Gildenhard, Bettina. History as faction: Historiography within Japanese comics as seen through Tezuka Osamu’s manga Adolf.
In Jaqueline Berndt & Steffi Richter (Eds.), Reading manga: Local and global perceptions of Japanese comics (pp. 95-106). Leipzig, Germany: Leipziger Universitatsverlag.

Hasegawa, Yuki. Kokoro (心): Civic epistemology of self-knowledge in Japanese war-themed manga.
In Roman Rosenbaum (ed.). The representation of Japanese politics in manga: The visual literacy of statecraft (pp. 245-264). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
[Message to Adolf]

Hutchinson, Rachael. Sabotaging the rising sun: Representing history in Tezuka Osamu’s Phoenix.
In Roman Rosenbaum (Ed.), Manga and the representation of Japanese history (pp. 18-39). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Kim, Joon Yang. The East Asian post-human prometheus: Animating mechanical ‘others’.
In Suzanne Buchan (Ed.), Pervasive animation (pp. 172-194). New York: Routledge.

Kon, Dong-Yeon. Growing up with Astro Boy and Mazinger Z: Industrialization, “high-tech world”, and Japanese animation in the art and culture of South Korea.
In Masao Yokota and Tzu-yue G. Hu (Eds.), Japanese animation: East Asian Perspectives (pp. 155-182). Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.

MacWilliams, Mark. Japanese comic books and religion: Osamu Tezuka’s story of the Buddha.
In Timothy J. Craig (Ed.), Japan pop!: Inside the world of Japanese popular culture (pp. 109-137). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

MacWilliams Mark, Revisioning Japanese religiosity: Osamu Tezuka’s Hi no Tori (The Phoenix) (revised and expanded)
In Timothy J. Craig & Richard King (Eds.), Global goes local: Popular culture in Asia (pp. 177-208). Vancouver: UBC Press. pp. 177-208.

Makela, Lee. From Metropolis to Metoroporisu: The changing role of the robot in Japanese and Western cinema.
In MacWilliams, Mark (Ed.), Japanese visual culture: Explorations in the world of manga and anime (pp. 91-113). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Nobis, James. Lolicon: Adolescent fetishization in Osamu Tezuka’s Ayako.
In Mark Heidermann & Brittany Tullis (Eds.), Picturing childhood: Youth in transnational comics (pp. 148-162). Austin: University of Texas Press.

Palmer, Ada. All life is genocide: The philosophical pessimism of Osamu Tezuka.
In Timothy Perper and Martha Cornog (Eds.), Mangatopia: Essays on manga and anime in the modern world (pp. 173-190). Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Palmer, Ada. You, God of Manga, are cruel.
In Josef Steiff and Adam Barkman (Eds.), Manga and philosophy: Fullmetal metaphysician (pp. 17-36). Chicago: Open Court.

Patten, Fred. Simba versus Kimba: The pride of lions.
In Alan Cholodenko (Ed.), The illusion of life II: More essays on animation (pp. 275-313). Sydney, Australia: Power Publications.

Phillips, Susanne. Characters, themes and narrative patterns in the manga of Osamu Tezuka.
In MacWilliams, Mark (Ed.), Japanese visual culture: Explorations in the world of manga and anime (pp. 68-80). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Riley, Yoko. Faust through the eyes of a Japanese cartoonist.
In Osman Durrani (Ed.), Icons of modern culture: Faust (pp. 409-416). Westfield, UK: Helm Information.

Roberts, Lee M. Film-noir features in German and Japanese comics: Isabel Kreitz’s Die Sache mit Sorge (2008) and Osamu Tezuka’s Adolf (1983-1985).
In Joanne Miyong Cho (ed.). German-East Asian encounters and entanglements: Affinity in culture and politics since 1945 (pp. 176-199). New York: Routledge.

Rosenbaum, Roman. Reading Showa history through manga: Astro Boy as the avatar of postwar Japanese culture.
In Roman Rosenbaum (Ed.), Manga and the representation of Japanese History (pp. 40-59). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Rosenbaum, Roman. Tesuka Osamu’s postcolonial discourse towards a hybrid national identity.
In Binita Mehta & Pia Mukherji (Eds.), Postcolonial comics: Texts, events, identities (pp. 59-73). New York: Routledge.

Ruh, Brian. Early Japanese animation in the United States: Changing Tetsuwan Atomu to Astro Boy.
In Mark I. West (Ed.), The Japanification of children’s popular culture: From Godzilla to Miyazaki (pp. 209-226). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.

Sheridan, Bruce. Imagination rising.
In Josef Steiff and Adam Barkman (Eds.), Manga and philosophy: Fullmetal metaphysician (pp. 37-49). Chicago: Open Court.

Tamplin, Tristan D. You need a system to play Black Jack.
In Josef Steiff and Adam Barkman (Eds.), Manga and philosophy: Fullmetal metaphysician (pp. 3-15). Chicago: Open Court.

Theisen, Nicholas. Declassicizing the classical in Japanese comics: Osamu Tezuka’s Apollo’s Song.
In George Kovacs and C. W. Marshall (Eds.), Classics and comics (pp. 59-72). New York: Oxford University Press.

Tranter, Kieran. Doing right in the world with 100,000 horsepower: Osamu Tezuka’s Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy), essense, posthumanity and techno-humanism.
In Ashley Pearson, Thomas Giddens, & Kieran Tranter (Eds.), Law and justice in Japanese popular culture: From crime fighting robots to duelling Pocket Monsters (pp. 95-111). Abingdon, UK. Routledge.

Whaley, Ben. What Tezuka would tell Trump: Critiquing Japanese cultural nationalism in Gringo.
In Roman Rosenbaum (ed.). The representation of Japanese politics in manga: The visual literacy of statecraft (pp. 162-182). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Yamada, Natsuki. The one which connects a gourmet cartoon with Osamu Tezuka: Cutting of Joe of Tomorrow. [chapter in Japanese, abstract in English]
In Miriam Castorina & Diego Cucinelli (eds.). Food issues: Interdisciplinary studies on food in modern and contemporary East Asia (pp. 45-58). Firenze: Firenze University Press.
*** OPEN ACCESS TO ENTIRE VOLUME ***

Yamanashi, Makiko. Tezuka and takarazuka. Intertwined roots of Japanese popular culture.
In Masao Yokota and Tzu-yue G. Hu (Eds.), Japanese animation: East Asian Perspectives (pp. 135-154). Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.

Journal articles
(Total published: 38)

Benzon, William L. The song at the end of the world: Personal apocalypse in Rintaro’s Metropolis. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and Fan Arts, 1, 171-173.

Bird, Lawrence. Dialectical imaginaries: Forms of life, forms of fascism in the Metropolis of film, manga and anime. Critical Planning: UCLA Urban Planning Journal, 19, 38-55.
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Bird, Lawrence. States of emergency: Urban space and the robotic body in the “Metropolis” tales. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and Fan Arts, 3, 127-148.

Brophy, Philip. Australia: The Osamu Tezuka exhibition: Ten years in the making. Wochi Kochi Magazine, 13, 32-36.

Buljan, Katherine. The uncanny and the robot in the Astro Boy episode “Franken”. Animation Studies, Special Issue: Animated Dialogues, 2007, 46-54.
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Clarke, M.J. Fluidity of figure and space in Osamu Tezuka’s Ode to Kirihito. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 9(1), 23-48.

Delgado-Algarra, Emilio-Jose. Comics as an educational resource in the teaching of social science: Socio-historical commitment and values in Tezuka’s manga. Cultura y Educación: Culture and Education, 29(4), 848-862.

Dosen, Asa. Probing the manga ToPoEt(h)ics in Tezuka’s Message to Adolf. Orientaliska Studier, 156, 38-45.
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Gaens, Bart. Tezuka Osamu’s MW: Challenging politics and society through manga. Ennen Ja Nyt, 4/2016.
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Gibson, Alicia. Atomic pop! Astro Boy, the dialectic of enlightenment, and machinic modes of being. Cultural Critique, 80, 183-204.

Ito, Go. Tezuka is dead: Manga in transformation and its dysfunctional discourse. Mechademia: An annual forum for anime, manga and the fan arts, 6, 69-82.
[Translated and excerpted from Tezuka izu deddo: Hirakareta manga no hyogenron e (Tezuka is dead: Post-modernist and modernist approaches to Japanese manga). Tokyo, NTT Shuppan, 2005].

Ishii, Anne. Medical manga comes to America. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 180(5), 542-543.
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[Black Jack]

Ito, Kinko. Osamu Tezuka: His life, works, and contributions to the history of modern Japanese comics. International Journal of Comic Art, 13(2), 679-699.

Kuwahara, Yasue. Japanese culture and popular consciousness: Disney’s The Lion King vs. Tezuka’s Jungle Emperor. The Journal of Popular Culture, 31(1), 37-48.

Lamarre, Thomas. Speciecism, part II: Tezuka Osamu and the multispecies ideal. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, 5, 51-85.

Lin, Ziyi. From postwar to Media Mix: Interpreting Mimio as a liminal character toy in Tezuka Osamu’s Abanchūru 21 (1970). Mechademia: Second Arc, 15(1), 167-189.

Lopez Rodriguez, Francisco Javier. Recreating the fantasy world of Dororo: Transcoding manga into cinema. Ol3Media: e-journal of Cinema, Television and Media Studies, 10.
*** OPEN ACCESS *** [complete issue]

Ma, Sheng-Mei. Three views of the Rising Sun, obliquely: Kenji Nakazawa’s A-bomb, Osamu Tezuka’s Adolf, and Yoshinori Kobayashi’s apologia. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and Fan Arts, 4, 183-196.
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MacWilliams, Mark. Revisioning Japanese religiousity: Tezuka Osamu’s Hi no Tori (The Phoenix). Japanese Religions, 24(1), 79-100.

Onoda, Natsu. Drag prince in spotlight: Theatrical cross-dressing in Osamu Tezuka’s early shojo manga. International Journal of Comic Art, 4(2), 124-138.

Onoda, Natsu. Tezuka Osamu and the Star System. International Journal of Comic Art, 5(1), 141-194.

Otsuka, Eiji. Disarming Atom: Tezuka Osamu’s manga at war and peace. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and Fan Arts, 3, 111-125.
[Translated by Thomas Lamarre. Originally published as Nichibei kõwa to ‘Tetsuwan Atomu: Tezuka Osamu wa naze ‘Atomu o busõ kaijo shita ka (The U.S. -Japan Peace Treaty and Tetsuwan Atomu: Why did Tezuka Osamu disarm ‘Atom’?), Kan, 22, 178-189 (2005)]

Parry, Maydia. ‘Astro Boy’ and the ethics of technology. Screen Education, 78, 20-23.

Peer, Ayelet, & Greenberg, Raz. The Japanese Trojan War: Tezuka Osamu’s envisioning of the Trojan cycle. Greece & Rome, 67(2), 151-167.

“The Trojan cycle has been retold and re-envisioned many times from antiquity to modern times. The themes covered by these myths, especially the Homeric poems, have captivated the minds and hearts of poets, historians, authors, and others. Homer’s Iliad extoled the grandeur as well as exposed the ugliness and folly of war. These humanistic virtues resonated with various cultures around the world. In this article we examine the reception of the Trojan cycle, especially the Iliad, on the noted manga artist Tezuka Osamu (1928–89). Recent reception theories focus on the creation of a new composition or artefact as part of the reception process; we shall thus discuss the Phoenix: Early Works manga as an example of such reception.”

Rosenbaum, Roman. Tezuka Osamu: Adolf – Towards a historio-graphic novel. International Journal of Comic Art, 415-434.

Schaub, Joseph. Mecha-topia: Imagining a posthuman paradise in Osamu Tezuka’s Metropolis. Interdisciplinary Humanities, 27(2), 94-110.

Schillings, Sonja. Pollution as a paradigm: Property, dignity, and absorption in Poth and Tezuka. Law, Technology and Humans, 2(2), 120-132.

Sunder, Madhavi. Bollywood/Hollywood. Theoretical Inquiries in Law, 12(1), 275-308.
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Schillings, Sonja. Pollution as a paradigm: Property, dignity, and absorption in Poth and Tezuka. Law, Technology and Humans, 2(2), 120-132.

“Pollution, this article suggests, challenges the fundamental structural premises of contemporary state institutions such as the law. These institutions are based on the premise of human exceptionalism via the construction of a human-nature divide. This divide only allows one point of connection between human and nature: the human ability to absorb nature as property. Such metaphorical understandings of absorption become a problem as soon as the physical human body is faced with a situation in which we constantly absorb pollution (e.g. nitrogen oxides, microplastic, ionizing radiation, but also other life forms such as airborne viruses). As a result, contemporary institutions are ill-equipped to deal with pollution as a central element of the contemporary human condition.

Steinberg, Marc. Anytime, anywhere: Tetsuwan Atomu stickers and the emergence of character merchandizing. Theory, Culture & Society, 26(2-3), 113-138.

“Japan’s first weekly, 30-minute animated TV series, Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy), is not only commonly regarded as the first instance of what is now known as `anime’; it is also regarded as the point of emergence of the commercial phenomenon of character-based merchandizing. Interesting enough, it is not so much Tetsuwan Atomu the TV series as the practice of including Atomu stickers as premiums in the candy maker Meiji Seika’s chocolate packages that really ignited the character merchandizing boom. The key to the success of the stickers — along with the use of the already popular figure of Atomu — was their ability to be stuck anywhere, and seen anytime. This anytime-anywhere potential of the stickers arguably led to the new communicational media environment and the cross-media connections that characterize the anime system and the force which drives it: the character. Part historical, part theoretical, this article will explore the thesis that it was the `medium’ of stickers that led to the development of the character-based multimedia environment that is a key example of — and perhaps even a precursor to — the ubiquity of media that is the theme of this journal issue.”

Steinberg, Marc. Immobile sections trans-series movement: Astroboy and the emergence of anime. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 1(2), 190-206.

“This article contrasts the different economies of motion found in cinema and animation, and explores the particular economy of movement and libidinal investment that accompanies Japanese anime, paying close attention to the first anime TV series, Astroboy (Tetsuwan Atomu). Metz and Lyotard argue that cinema generates an impression of reality through its particular economy of motion. Cel animation, in contrast, relies on a different economy of motion. This is especially the case in the specific kind of limited animation found in Japanese anime. This article focuses on the specificities of this kind of animated movement (particularly its emphasis on stillness), and the way Astroboy relied on commodity serialization to generate a particularly immersive image environment – one that set the stage for what is now known as ‘anime’.”

Tanaka, Yuki. War and peace in the art of Tezuka Osamu: The humanism of his epic manga. The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus.
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Thornton-Gibson, Katherine. Ukiyo-e, World War II, and Walt Disney: The influences on Tezuka Osamu’s development of the modern world of anime and manga. The Phoenix Papers: A Journal of Fandom and Neomedia Studies, 3(1), 344-356.

Uehara, Kuniko. The robot fantasy – The case of Osamu Tezuka. Fastitocalon: Studies in Fantasticism Ancient to Modern, 2(1 & 2), 113-132.

Vollmar, Rob. Dark side of the manga: Tezuka Osamu’s dark period. World Literature Today, 86(2), 14-19.
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Walker, Seth. Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha, canonical authority, and remix theory in the study of religion. Journal of the American Academy of Religion (forthcoming).

Whaley, Ben. Three cases of fatal mixing in the war comics of Tezuka Osamu. International Journal of Comic Art, 16(1), 244-257.

Yomota, Inuhiko. Stigmata in Osamu Tezuka’s works. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and Fan Arts, 3, 97-109.
[translated and introduced by Hajime Nakatani]