Friday, April 24, 2015

Booknote: Adolf, Volume 3: The Half-Aryan

Osamu Tezuka, Adolf, Volume 3: The Half-Aryan. San Francisco, CA: Cadence Books, 1996. ISBN: 1-56931-133-1.

Genre: Manga
Subgenre: historical fiction
Format: trade paperback
Source: My local public library
Series: Third volume in a five volume set.



I continue reading this great series. In the previous volume, the documents containing Hitler's secret appear to be destroyed. Yet reporter Sohei Toge is still being chased by the Japanese Secret Police and by a Gestapo agent. Meanwhile, in Germany, Adolf Kaufman is doing very well at the Hitler Youth School. In fact, he is doing so well he gets sent to Lithuania to help hunt down Jews, and even gets ordered to kill Isaac Kamil, his best friend's Adolf Kamil's father. Meanwhile, back in Japan, Adolf Kamil meets Miss Ogi, who may well be his only hope to get the documents out.

Tezuka weaves quite the tale full of thrills and suspense. You just keep on reading. If you know the history, you can certainly appreciate the perspective Tezuka brings, and you can also tell where the author took a liberty here or there for the fictional art. The manga art works very well to bring the tale to life. The volume also includes an introduction by Matt Thorn discussing Tezuka's work in terms of modernism and humanism.

It keeps getting better, so I am giving this one 5 out of 5 stars.


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