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Since Osamu Tezuka took criticism of his art personally, would he find himself criticizing the work of other artists (such as Yokoyama's) that were of the same genre as his own? As Tezuka's MIGHTY ATOM grew, so did Yokoyama's IRON MAN 28 eventually.
Most artists take criticism of their work personally. It seems to be normal in the profession. And at the top end of the industry, the artists are exposed to far more criticism simply because they are so visible, exposed, and increasingly surrounded by jealous competitors. What really bugged Tezuka, I think, is that he sometimes felt he was being misunderstood, or misrepresented. He therefore took a certain umbrage at the public embrace of remote controlled "robots," such as Iron Man No. 28 or much later, Gundam, because they weren't really robots, in the sense that they aren't autonomous and require humans to operate.
As Tezuka once wrote, remote controlled robots and warrior suits are more like the giant "power shovels," or heavy equipment, that you might see in real life at a construction site. Of course, if it would help the story line, he had no compunction about drawing that sort of "robot" himself. In the 1953-54 Astro Boy episode of "Mission to Mars," for example, Tezuka himself employed "drivable robots," which in another context he might have criticized as "power shovels." As far as I am aware, the drivable "robots" in "Mission to Mars" are some of the first robot "Suits" depicted in Japanese manga.
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On the topic of Tezuka as a young man, interested in modern arts: your book mentions that peace--apart from war (and his experiences with the Second World War)--brought artistic and intellectual freedom. If peace can be equated with artistic autonomy, how would one such as Osamu Tezuka have termed the war-period as it influenced his art? Would it be possible to describe his creative motivations during wartime? He was young, but as you report, he drew some 2,000 pages of original manga during this time.
Tezuka clearly hated the war. But from my perspective, I think the war may also have boosted his desire to draw cartoons. Since cartooning was frowned upon during the war in Japan, a type of tension--a burning desire to be able to draw feely--built up within him. When the war was over, this energy was unleashed in a spectacular fashion. As many of us have probably experienced, when we are told that we "can't" or "shouldn't" do something, it seems to make us want to do it more. Sort of like being told you can't have that delicious piece of pie in the refrigerator, when all you want to do is eat a piece of pie!
One of my favorite parts of your book THE ASTRO BOY ESSAYS is a moment you help narrate a moment in Tezuka's life, during wartime, where he goes to the Shochikuza movie theater, "which had somehow survived the bombings."
The timing of the 1945 children's film MOMOTARO: UMI NO SHINPEI ("Momotaro: Divine Sea Warriors"), had a profound impact on the young artist. Overwhelmed with the sensitivity of the black and white feature, he weeps in the lonely theater, impressed at the picture's capacity to render such vivid emotion in a time of such despair (p. 58-59). Was Tezuka's connection to the animated medium as emotional as it was fiercely artistic?
I honestly don't think you can separate the two. Tezuka was deeply involved in animation on both an emotional and artistic level. He often liked to joke that manga was his wife, and animation was his mistress, meaning that he loved manga and felt a sense of duty to manga, but that he was completely, utterly obsessed with animation (and inclined to squander money on it). His obsession with animation is what led him into bankruptcy with his first company, Mushi Productions, because he undertook too many unprofitable animation projects, and ignored the bottom line.
We've touched on the topic of how Tezuka was able to write stories that appealed to any variety of demographics. The borderline between adult and child entertainment cultures in Japan is oftentimes blurry; was this something artists were conscious of, in their creative process, at the time Tezuka was publishing MIGHTY ATOM in the 1950s, 60's and 70's?
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Only in recent years, I think, have artists been able to compare their situation with that of artists overseas, and even now few bother to do so because they are completely focused on the huge domestic market. In the early days, Tezuka definitely knew that he was drawing for a young audience, mainly of boys, and he obviously had to cater to their interests. The good thing is that in his work he rarely talked down to young children. As a result, we are left with some very interesting and sophisticated stories, such as his 1953 version of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. It would probably be better if most artists, even in America, did not talk down or try to over-simplify their work for children, since children generally seem to be much smarter and sophisticated than we adults assume.