Apollo’s  Song

Osamu Tezuka / Published by Vertical, Inc.

Story:

Shogo Chikaishi has been sent to a psych house for his extreme tendencies to kill animals whenever they appear to ‘loving’ each other. To try and ‘cure’ him of his illness, he is treated with shock therapy. During the treatment, he enters a dream where he stands in front of the goddess Athena who questions him on his hating of love which eventually traces back to his get-going mom. Shogo then undergoes other ‘treatments’ which put him in a dream-like state, in which he becomes a Nazi, an assassin, a to-be-athletic runner, a sex slave, and many other things, and is finally able to learn what true love really is.

Presentation:

I’m a total fan of Vertical. Their release of Apollo’s Song follows their high standard and is magnificent. The cover art is by Chip Kidd, as many of their titles are, and really captures the spirit of the story (though I did notice that the images on the cover art are unflipped, unlike what is actually inside on the pages). And although the manga is flipped, it really doesn’t bother me much – aside from Nike being on Athena’s left instead of right. It’s Tezuka, he’s a classic mangaka, and to even have his works released in any format in English is enough. I see no point in fussing about it. The book weighs in at a 540-and-some-odd-pages, but it seems much larger since  the paper is pretty thick. Excellent work.

Other Rambles:

I’m not one to really go on and on about the plot of the story. I try to keep it short and to the point, so when you actually read the book, you can experience it yourself. I never like it when I see a review and almost all it is is a recap of the story – who wants that? For that reason, the ‘Story’ section above is fairly short. I was able to fly through this extremely fast – maybe two hours? I’ve read a few Tezuka works (random Phoenix and Buddha volumes) and they usually take me longer, but Apollo’s Song was really easy to get into. If you’ve never read anything by Tezuka, go ahead and grab this before anything else.

When I about half way through the book, I was wondering why the story was called ‘Apollo’s Song’ because the only reference to any gods or goddess was Athena at the beginning. I get a little farther into it and there is this battle against the sun, so I thought, “Okay, maybe the Sun = Apollo and such, but then what’s the ‘Song’ business about?”. It wasn’t until the end when it talks about Daphne and Apollo did it click – which it should with all. Oh, a gripe I had: it says the Greek myth, but then uses Roman god names? (Jupiter = Roman, Zeus = Greek). Same business happened in Viz’s release of Phoenix, too.  Not sure what is up, it might be Tezuka himself… or it might be that they are going off of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which is Roman with Roman names based on Greek myths… or something — I don’t know, it just caught my attention.

So yeah, the whole reason I picked this for today was obviously because Valentine’s Day was yesterday and this whole book centers on the world of love. It was actually my first ‘omnibus’ of Tezuka’s I’ve read as well. I own Ode to Kirihito and MW, but I have yet to get around to them. Maybe I’ll do Ode to Kirihito next, as in AS, Shogo goes from an animal-state of insaneness to loving human; while in Kirihito, I think it’s the opposite? Bah, we’ll see. Truly enjoyed Tezuka’s story – definitely one of the better ones that I’ve read so far. He’s truly a god… even reading his works 40 years after they were published, it’s amazing to see how they do not age. I’m positive Tezuka will stay a classic for many decades (millennia?)  to come. Can’t wait to dive into another work of his.

Be sure to grab Apollo’s Song from Amazon, Rightstuf (currently having 33% off Vertical publishings), Randomhouse, or the many other bookstores out there! Also, be sure to check out Vertical’s site for a free preview!