MMF: Tezuka, Sex, and Gender (Part 1 of 2)

As part of this month’s Manga Movable Feast, I invited other bloggers to discuss Osamu Tezuka’s depiction of female characters. Six people answered my call: Derik Badman, host of madinkbeard.com; Alexander Hoffman, host of Manga Widget and a contributor to Manga Village; Omar Khan, YA Librarian for the Upper Saddle River Public Library in Saddle River, NJ; Matthew Plummer, avid reader and Tezuka enthusiast; Khursten Santos, manga scholar and hostess of Otaku Champloo; and Ed Sizemore, host of Manga Out Loud and contributor to Manga Worth Reading.

For a week, we held a spirited online debate about Tezuka’s portrayal of women, discussing both his youthful works — Astro Boy, Princess Knight — and his mature ones — MW, The Book of Human Insects, Swallowing the Earth. Below is a transcript of our conversation. (Note that this is the first of two parts; the second will be posted on Monday, February 27th.) I hope you’ll help us continue the discussion by sharing your thoughts in the comment section.

Before beginning, readers should be aware that we discuss a number of sensitive issues, including the use of rape and abortion as plot points in Tezuka’s seinen works.

KATE: One of the most challenging aspects of Osamu Tezuka’s work — for me, at least — is that many of his intelligent, complex female characters are portrayed as sexual deviants. Zephyrus in Swallowing the Earth is a good example: she professes to loathe men, but frequently relies on her sexual allure to destroy them. Toshiko Tomura of The Book of Human Insects is another: she romances men (and, in her case, women as well) to learn the secrets of their respective trades, then discards them, leaving behind a shell of a person. More uncomfortable still, she frequently reverts to a child-like state where she tries to recreate the experience of nursing at her mother’s breast.

How do you respond to these kind of characters? Do you find Tezuka’s portrayal of them more complex or flattering than I do? Why or why not?

ED: Honestly, I’m not sure what I think about Tezuka’s portrayal of women. Since Ada made me aware of it, I’m a little bothered by his use of insect imagery. I don’t know of any mammals where the female kills the male after mating. So I wonder if Tezuka’s use of insects is a critique of the gender roles Japanese society places on women or just using well-known, femme fatale imagery.

I keep hoping that Tezuka meant for his mature writings like Ayako, Swallowing the Earth, and Book of Human Insects to be a critique of gender roles in Japanese society. He may be writing stories that come across as offensive in order to shock the reader into confronting unexamined attitudes toward women. That said, I’m often accused of be pollyannaish in my reading of my favorite authors, so I want to get other people’s perspective on these books.

KHURSTEN: I find their personal complexity fascinating and shocking. The way Toshiko Tomura finds her thrills in changing into the next big thing and the way Ayako has a penchant for love with sex is something I rarely see in manga of that time.

There is a strong sense of sexuality in Tomura and Ayako’s characters, although I find their sexualities particularly different. Both are guiltless about their sexual tirades. I would assume it’s because Ayako is an innocent, while Tomura knows exactly how she’ll use her sexuality to get what she wants. The way I see it, Tomura falls in a very masculine approach to her sexual power while Ayako is Tezuka’s exploration of misunderstood and misused sexuality.

I am more perplexed by the fact that this was written by the same guy who wrote straight-lined heroes and heroines such as Sapphire and Atom/Astro! (Of course, I’m quite sure that even that is also subject to discussion!) I wish I knew why he drew such characters. Did he have a vixen like Tomura in his midst? Or was he so smitten by Bond girls that he fantasized deeper into their personalities? Who knows really but perhaps, if there are Tezuka experts out there, they could give an insight on how this happened.

MATTHEW: I think that’s sorta inaccurate in terms of Atom. Atom is a robot and therefore was genderless. It’s true that he was designed and built after Tenma’s dead son, but Atom never really had any love interests and was never really masculine. He was the perfect boy adventurer in the same vein as Tin Tin and Jonny Quest.

For me, the story that feels best conceived for women would be Phoenix: Nostalgia which is essentially Tezuka’s take on The Little Prince with a bit of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland thrown in and feels like a great story about a woman that wants more out of life and wants to seek it out, and does find happiness at the end.

If there is one thing to bring up with the girls that Tezuka writes, especially in his adult stories, is the occurance of rape. If there is an easy way to write female characters badly, it’s having them get raped, especially for the sake of giving a reason for the hero to pursue a villain, or to show that a character is a villain. Tezuka usually gets a pass because he wrote all his stories so long ago and gender roles were far different than today. It doesn’t change the fact, though, that Tezuka wrote them those characters as having been raped because that’s something that can happen to women.

Female characters can be physically threatened, blackmailed, or something else to get the same message across but rape is this barbaric thing that is an easy “go to” plot point when you want a story to be “dark” and “edgy.” I’m not saying that it can’t be done well, but when a character goes through it, and the story doesn’t really address the woman after the act and how she deals with it, then it was simply a means to an end for the sake of the plot, like that was their purpose in that story or the most significant thing to happen to them. Ayako would be probably the best example of this, and I say best as at least there is some recovery or exploration in how she copes with her situation as opposed to some of the others that just aren’t explored at all.

In the case of Human Insects and Swallowing the Earth, Tezuka is portraying women in a mythological sense. In Greco-Roman mythology, women are commonly seen as temptresses who use their sexuality to corrupt and destroy men, e.g. Helen of Troy, Circe, the Sirens, even Biblical tales like Sampson and Delihla. In Swallowing the Earth, Tezuka presented a male protagonist that was formidable in brute strength and could not be bested by any man he met. Therefore, the only thing that could oppose him was a woman that could lower his defenses and attack him emotionally. It didn’t work in the end, but it does present itself, based on what we know initially, that a guy like him could only probably be done in by a woman and her wiles. I think that Zephyrus hates men because she sees them as weak and constantly proves it to herself by luring men in and undermining them. It’s sort of the same way that men will sometimes reaffirm their superiority over women by going out and luring a woman and back and having their way, never really changing their mind about it until they meet someone they can’t have.

In Human Insects, Tomura is aware of her sexuality and knows how to use it to her advantage in accomplish her goals, but isn’t responsible in how she uses it. I can see how, given the role women played there and then, that sex was probably the only way a woman could advance or gain recognition in any male-dominated field. Tomura also works on a level of masculine fear that men can have a problem with a woman doing what they do better, especially if she’s an intimate partner. Maybe Tezuka was trying to bring this anxiety to the surface in Human Insects by having this woman which excels at anything she sets out for but doesn’t really try to carve her own path to anything she wants to continue in a career.

DERIK: I’m at a disadvantage for Katherine’s question as I’ve not read Swallowing the Earth or The Book of Human Insects, as there is a point at which I couldn’t read anymore of Tezuka’s “adult” works. Part of that, I think, is the issue at hand. Last time I reread a bunch of them (Ayako, Kirihito, Adolf) I noticed how often Tezuka employs rape as a plot point (as Matthew mentioned), and how often the women seem to respond to it in ways that seem out of touch with reality (MW and Ayako come to mind). The women in so many of these volumes are flat and used more as tools for the men (often the protagonist/antagonist) to bat around as they fight.

The femme fatale-esque characters in the two I haven’t read seem to reinforce my conception of Tezuka’s woman as falling into a pretty limited set of stereotypes/roles: the femme fatale, the victim, the utterly devoted caretaker (mother or lover usually), and of course the love object who seems to have no personality at all. It seems pretty rare, in the Tezuka I’ve read (admittedly not even all the ones available in English), that he reaches outside those roles. A few of the women in Phoenix do (Kajika in “Yamato,” the protagonist (who goes by a few names) of “Strange Beings”).

I’m not sure how to read all this, we can write off some to culture, some to history, but for an artist who was otherwise so innovative it is a great disappointment. And once you notice it, it’s hard not to every time you read one of his works. That’s partially why I never read the first two works above, as the plot descriptions just seemed a little too much. As for Ed’s suggestion that Tezuka might be critiquing gender roles, I’d like to here some argument for that. I’ll give it some thought as I continue rereading/skimming the Tezuka on my shelf for this discussion (haven’t quite made it through everything yet).

OMAR: Like some of you, I have found Tezuka’s portrayal of some of his women a little… off. I can’t offer my thoughts on the psychology of the man as I have never met him, so I cannot say that Tezuka was a misogynist or anything of the sort, but when you look at the time he was writing these works and what was also popular at the time, parts of it start to make sense.

Tezuka received a lot of criticism in his life, including being labeled “old fashioned” by other manga artists by the time the gekigas of the 1960s became popular. Tezuka jumped into this ring with a mission — he was always a competitive man, as his friends and coworkers often stated, and my guess is he didn’t want to be forever branded as the creator of Disney-esque fantasy comics for the rest of his career.

Around this period was when works like Ayako and The Book of Human Insects were published, and they were marketed in publications like Big Comic (home to Takao Saito’s classic “manly-man” series Golgo 13 among other “serious” works), and those magazines targeted the seinen demographic, marketing dark, violent, gritty stories to male audiences in their late teens to thirties.

Given that Tezuka was seemingly “old fashioned” by the time he started writing in this new wave of dark dramas, chances are he may not have gotten rid of his 1940′s-inspired style of storytelling. A lot of his stories between the 60′s into the 80′s, from works like Ode to Kirihito and Adolf to Alabaster and Bomba!, had this older noir/detective/men’s adventure feel to them. Basically, despite writing in the 60′s and 70′s, perhaps Tezuka truly was timelocked in the 40′s and 50′s. Maybe despite the mature subject matter and his increasingly sophisticated presentation, he just couldn’t break free of the men’s/boys adventure stories from yesteryear — stories that often featured women as frustrating, mysterious, dangerous, and weak.

DERIK: It does seem that the adult/gekiga/whatever-you-want-to-call-them works are the more problematic of his works and we have perhaps seen an disproportionate number of those in English lately. From a gender/sex standpoint, Tezuka’s other works seem less problematic. I’ve been paging through Phoenix (in preparation for this discussion) and I’m finding more positive female characters in it. I haven’t read Buddha lately, but I believe it is the case for that work too (admittedly, the historical period for Buddha as a narrative will involve its own issues).

It’s like Tezuka didn’t really know how to do “dark” without the misogynistic elements (which really are a staple of the hard boiled genre). Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can comment on the on the original venues of a lot of these works (Phoenix? Buddha? Adolf?) and how they compare to works like MW, Kirihito, Ayako, etc.

ED: Phoenix ran in several magazines over the years. Essentially, any where Tezuka could get a chapter published. It started in Tezuka’s own COM, which was a sci-fi/fantasy magazine aimed at adult readers. Buddha didn’t run in a manga magazine. It ran in a Buddhist magazine that only had one other manga feature.

OMAR: I was flipping through my volumes of Adolf a little while ago. In volume five (this was Cadence Books 1996 translation) there is an introduction by Gerard Jones which sums it up rather well: “Most of the great practitioners, including Tezuka, make their points by going for the heart and gut, not the head. The result is that big issues are often oversimplified to a point that makes our heads uneasy.”

KHURSTEN: On the issues of gender roles, many of these books were written during 1960s to 1970s (except for Adolf, which was written in the 80s.) I can only assume that Tezuka himself was not one to question or challenge gender roles (not a lot of Japanese men were considering Japan’s hardline gender constructions) although many academics felt he did that with Princess Knight. If I take into context his love for Takarazuka and theatrical arts, and knowing his penchant for expanding his tales into grand and almost demented narratives, I feel Tezuka’s the kind of writer who exhausts his characters to the extreme. If a woman or man was placed into this position, how much could he or she achieve? How tragic would be her downfall?

One of the things I learned in studying mangaka who are at the heart of Japanese gender studies (e.g. Magnificent 49ers) is that they never really created their stories thinking so much of gender issues. They want to build the romance and raise the tension, and I feel that Tezuka was the same with his representation of both men and women. Of course, how he engenders his characters is quite fascinating. For example, in Princess Knight, he made the boy heart distinct from the girl’s heart, and Sapphire’s actions are greatly dictated by which heart she owns. The same goes for Toshiko Tomura where she actually metamorphose to the last man or woman she leeched on. How they act is not something they created on their own but their actions are greatly governed by what Tezuka wishes them to be, however masculine or feminine that is. On their own, they’re quite genderless creatures and their transformations in gender is something quite fascinating.

I would have to agree with Derik that by the nth Tezuka book for adults, the portrayal of women becomes distressing. At the end of some of his Japanese published books, Tezuka’s wife lovingly speaks about him. Thus, I do wonder if this was simply an exploration of characters or that his knowledge of women’s characters are more of how men see women at that time. The worst that can happen to women is rape. The best that can happen to women is when they embrace masculinity. It’s an outdated point of view but it reflects Tezuka’s mind and beliefs at that period.

ED: Could you expand on what Mrs. Tezuka was writing or saying? I’d be very interested in seeing his wife’s reaction or maybe even attempts to defend Tezuka and his works.

KHURSTEN: In the Kodansha copy of Princess Knight, Etsuko Tezuka speaks about her thoughts on Princess Knight. If I may quote the afterword, she says “There was something so special about his cartoons. Beautifully done in color with cute, large-eyed, curly haired somewhat Western-looking characters reminiscent of America’t Betty Boop, these cartoons also reminded me of the Takarazuka musicals I had been seeing since I was small — something about the costumes and the fantastical plots. I became a hopeless fan.”

In this same afterword, she spoke of how a friend said that she looked like Princess Knight.

Of course she was talking about Princess Knight, but I think if Tezuka had treated his wife differently, I doubt she could say some things with great warmth. She did say that it was her favorite among Tezuka’s works. I would assume that above all, she had the most access to Tezuka’s works and had read almost all of his works. As to whether she’s just being the typical supportive Japanese housewife or not, we’ll never know. If she were, then she would represent all those good wives in Tezuka’s tales. I may be incorrect, but maybe someone who has read those Tezuka books might be able to give insight on his perspective on feminism.

DERIK: For what it’s worth, I don’t think critiquing the gender roles/sexuality in Tezuka’s work has to be about critiquing or analyzing the man himself.

KHURSTEN: Personally, I think that understanding the gender roles in Tezuka’s works must also involve the context of his work and that includes the author himself and the philosophy time he resides in. What we believe as gender now is entirely different from how people at Tezuka’s time understood gender, especially in Japan. Our opinions on the issue will be very harsh given how much concepts of gender has evolved today and people can easily assume that Tezuka’s a misogynist with all the rape in his stories. His works can also be misinterpreted by people simply because of how we saw him portray women in his craft. As a historian by trade, historical context plays a crucial role in either clearing this possible misunderstanding. The author and his time just as crucial as the craft itself.

Gender may have been a word that was foreign to him

DERIK: I don’t think critiquing the stories needs to be about saying “Tezuka is a bad guy.” It is about culture and context and time period.

I do think, though, that you can use culture/history as too much of a free pass. For instance, one of my absolute favorite filmmakers is Yasujiro Ozu. He is Japanese and would have been of an earlier generation than Tezuka (born about 25 years earlier), but his works are, I believe, very considerate of the female characters. You can see him looking at the changing role of women in his society and the changing mores for them in a way that seems really missing in Tezuka. And there is a compassion for the women that is so often absent in these Tezuka works. Admittedly Ozu’s works (at last the later ones) are almost exclusively domestic dramas from a major film studio, so even if he had wanted to he wouldn’t have been able to show the types of things Tezuka does.

So I guess I’m contradicting myself, because I don’t think we can just say “culture!” “the past!”

To be continued; look for part two of our roundtable discussion on Tezuka, Sex, and Gender on Monday, February 27th.