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It's hard in retrospect to say whether it was a good or bad thing for Mushi Productions to over-commit. Over-committing made it possible for them to ramp-up and help establish an industry in a hurry, and to be involved in so many different areas of animation (ranging from the experimental to the commercial to the racy). On the other hand, it also hastened their bankruptcy. The company went bankrupt for a variety of reasons, but over commitment was definitely one of them. And it also led, some say, to the establishment of a bad precedent--of low wages, ridiculously tight schedules and the generally poor working conditions in the Japanese anime industry today. Since the Japanese animation industry is so huge and seemingly successful today, it often comes as a surprise to Americans to learn that working conditions and pay are actually miserable for most people.
On the topic of Osamu Tezuka's experience in animation. How reluctant was Tezuka of the routine/method of animation production he pioneered?
In the world of animation, Tezuka is known as a pioneer of "limited animation," which has helped create the framework for modern anime. In other words, he is known for a system of creating animation on a low budget, using few cels and concentrating on story and character development rather than on fluidity of movement. I don't think Tezuka worried too much about the new style of anime that he helped create, but in an ideal world there is no doubt that he would have liked to have had bigger budgets and make more fluid, Disney-style animation.
He found it very amusing, later, when he read comments by intellectuals in Japan, glorifying "limited animation" techniques by linking them to Japanese cultural mumbo-jumbo; linking the pauses and lack of movement in anime, for example, to the understatement and dramatic, pregnant pauses sometimes
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How did Tezuka take criticism?
He was always full of ideas, but what would happen if others challenged his artistic skills, storytelling logic or political views?
Tezuka always wanted to be accepted and liked by his fans, and by the public. As a result, he often took criticism of his style and skills quite personally. I don't think he was as sensitive to criticism of his politics, especially in the world that he inhabited (that of an entertainer, especially in the relatively non-political children's market), but he was definitely touchy about complaints about his art style.
This was especially true because he had no formal art training and was largely self-taught.
Art styles in the manga/anime world change very quickly, so it is impossible to be at the cutting edge of popularity all the time. One of the truly amazing things about Tezuka is that he was actually able to change his art style, from a purely Disney-esque style to one closer to that of the more realistic gekiga, or "action picture" artists, when they became popular. This is not something that is easy to do for a manga artist, or any artist, for that matter.
Tezuka could also become rather jealous of other popular artists, an example being Katsuhiro Otomo, when Otomo became the darling of the media for Akira and other works, which dazzled manga fans with their realistic art style. But jealousy was also something that motivated him.
He rather liked having what he called "raibaru" ("rivals").
Some anime and manga fans may not be aware of the fact that Osamu Tezuka didn't attended an art school. How different would Tezuka's careers in manga production and animation production have been if he underwent formal training in art/cartooning?
I know this is a vague question to begin with; but would his initial experiences in publishing comics have started elsewhere? Or even creatively, as imaginative and remarkable of an original storyteller he was, how different do you think his work would have been with formal training.
I really don't think that formal art training would have helped Tezuka much. In fact, it might have hindered him. Many of the comics artists I have talked to say that formal art training makes it very hard to develop one's own, individual style, and in the world of manga and anime, a unique style is often what makes a character successful or not, and may even make or break a story. The only way that formal training might have helped Tezuka is that he would have had more confidence in his own art. On the other hand, if he had had formal training he probably wouldn't have done so many innovative things. If you look at some of Tezuka's early works, from the periods when he was really experimenting, he was absolutely fearless in his page layouts and designs. He either never knew, or was never willing to acknowledge the conventions of traditional comics.