Buddha, Vol. 1
Published by: Vertical
Story and Art by Osamu Tezuka

400 (396) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Left to right (flipped)
Vintage: 1987. US edition 2006.
English credits aren’t listed, but I’ll give a nod to Chip Kidd, Art Director, and Kerim Yasar, Editor. (other executives & staff are listed on the website)
Publisher’s Rating: None given.

Rating: 4 out of 5

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Premise: The life of the Buddha. Not a religious paean, though: A manga biography of an extraordinary man told with a mix of comics sensibilities, an echo of gritty realism, and a touch of humour.

Synopsis:

Of course, in volume one, the man who will become Buddha isn’t even born yet. For our main characters, we have Chapra and his Mom, who are slaves owned by a fairly wealthy merchant. There is also Naradatta, the monk, who was sent by the head of his monastery to seek out a mysterious man, one who will know the answer to a key riddle. Our other hero is the ever resourceful ragamuffin Tatta, who is of the lowest caste, an untouchable, but he doesn’t let that get him down.

The four are thrown together, and events really get moving, when an invading army comes to take over Kapilavastu Castle. Tatta and Chapra don’t live in the castle–they live three and four towns over. General Budai and his soldiers are pretty much pillaging like they usually would even though no one is opposing them. It gets messy.
Life is tough on the subcontinent, and then you die. Events have been set into motion, though, that might change that fate for everyone.

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Review:

Let’s talk about length, shall we? This is a 400 page book. It’s not a compilation of several volumes, it was written to be a single book and originally published at this size. Oh, and it’s volume one of eight. The young prince Siddhartha of Kapilavastu is only born on page 257, so we know Tezuka is going to be taking us on a long trip, before he finishes the tale of this one, extraordinary life.

You won’t mind. At least, I didn’t, because there is quite a bit of story here. Tezuka also throws us the occasional anachronism or sight gag, so it’s not as deep and serious as you might think, for a biography of the Buddha.

Tezuka has his own style, which you’ll immediate recognise, because artists have been copying him for decades. Characters and animals are drawn in a “cartoon” style, and one can see the heavy influence of classic American toons, from the likes of Disney and Warner Bros. Backgrounds are richly drawn (when they need to be) and other artwork is well done, so the character designs in this style are a conscious choice, not a deficiency of talent.

Osamu Tezuka is a manga god, and this is a fine example of why. It’s amazing to me what one man can do with just pen and ink. I don’t see any ‘modern’ production methods, and ‘87 was a tad too early for Photoshop, so just pause and appreciate that all 396 pages of artwork have been hand-drawn. From the Himalayan backdrops, to palace interiors, to a plague of freakin’ locusts, every bit of it was done the old fashioned way. Tezuka illustrates on nearly every page why comics (art + words) are equal to more than just the sum of their parts.

I’m going to recommend these, and I’ll be buying the other volumes as they come out in paperback (the eight hardcover editions have been out for a year) so sometime in June I’ll be back here on Comicsnob to tell you my overall impressions of all 3,180 pages of this thing.