Motifs of Immortality in Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix

Abstract

Osamu Tezuka is well known for having written many famous manga over his long life, such as Black Jack (ブラクジャック), Phoenix (火の鳥), and Buddha (ブッダ). In his manga Phoenix, an ever-present motif is immortality and reincarnation. This investigation analyzes the first five stories in the 12-volume series. I intend to analyze each story’s discussion of those themes, especially in the context of events that happen in the series such as the reappearances of the characters Saruta and the Phoenix. This project discusses the different types of immortality that are described in the manga in order to show how immortality connects the stories even though each story takes place in a vastly different time period. This research is significant to the larger topic of manga as literature because there are many articles arguing that manga is a respectable form of literature like novels, short stories, or poetry, but very few articles that analyze manga as literature. Immortality is an important motif to the work as a whole, and therefore must be examined because it is what ties the series together.