手塚治虫 vs 浦沢直樹

Almost everyone would know Astro Boy, also known as The Atom.

He is created by 手塚治虫 (Osamu Tezuka). God of Manga in Japanese. Master of all, his creations are timeless. Kimba the White Lion, Black Jack etc etc. Heck! There is even a award in Japan call the Osamu Tezuka Awards, it awards the artist and authors of Manga in Japan, whose works have a great impact in terms of influential and greatness. The award is like the Oscars of Manga in Japan. Wanna know more about Tezuka, go google his name and you will know. He was born in 1928 and left the world in 1989). Nobody ever came close to him in terms of creativity and style.

Today, one of his chapters from Astro Boy was re-created by another amazing artist/author : 浦沢直樹 (Naoki Urasawa).

Personally, I love Naoki's work. He is a master story teller, who can create a character and made you fall in love with him/her within 20 pages, then killed off that character in the next 2 pages and make you cry. He is simply the best in this time and era. His most famous work being Monster(1995-2001), which won him the Osamu Tezuka Award in 1999. His subsequent work 20th Century Boys(1999-2006) won the Media Arts Festival Award for Excellence.

Currently, he took on a brave project and challenge. His new book, Pluto. A story arc in Astro's series.
Naoki again did an amazing job in re-creating all the characters and story line and took the readers into the story from another perspective, and you have never seen Astro Boy being portray/drawn in such a manner. Currently 3 volumes of Pluto have been released and the first volume have again won him the Osamu Tezuka Award. He is the only person that have won the award twice.

Do yourself a favor, pick up Naoki's Monster, then move on to 20th Century Boys and then jump into Pluto. You have never read anything like this before.(all books are translated into Chinese from Japanese)

Let's see if he can 1 up Osamu Tezuka by re-creating Astro boy.

(By the way, Astro Boy share the same birth date as me. He is born April 7th 2003. Me, April 7th 1976. Please note that Osamu Tezuka created Astro Boy in 1952, giving him a birth date of April 7th 2003 then.)

Photo : Naoki Urasawa's masterpieces.