The Spring 2024 Manga Guide

Shakespeare Manga Theater

What's It About? 

Throughout his career, Osamu Tezuka adapted many of Shakespeare's works. Shakespeare Manga Theater collects them into one volume. The book includes The Merchant of Venice (1959), Robio and Robiette (from Astro Boy, 1965), Macbeth (from Vampire “The Three Fortunetellers,” 1966), Hamlet (from Rainbow Parakeet, 1981), The Taming of the Shrew (from Rainbow Parakeet, 1981), Othello (from Rainbow Parakeet, 1982).

While this may sound like a collection of manga versions of classic plays, they would be better described as quality examples of creative adaptation and storytelling by a master of the craft.

Shakespeare Manga Theater is a manga by Ozamu Tezuka. This volume is translated by Iyasu Adair Nagata and Frederick L. Schodt (Robio and Robinette), lettered and retouched by Aidan Clarke. Published by Ablaze (April 9, 2024).

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

This collection is, in many ways, more for the Osamu Tezuka fan than the Shakespeare buff. While there are some recognizable depictions of Bard's plays – The Rainbow Parakeet: Othello is very clear, as is the opening chapter, which adapts my personal least favorite play, The Merchant of Venice. (Interestingly, Tezuka leaves out Jessica entirely. Fine by me.) Other chapters are much more of a stretch; The Rainbow Parakeet: The Taming of the Shrew name drops the play but doesn't follow it and Robio and Robiette from Astro Boy is more The Steadfast Tin Soldier than Romeo and Juliet, while the excerpt from Tezuka's Vampires has only the surface trappings of Macbeth. (Which, judging by Tezuka's commentary, is rather differently interpreted in Japan than in Anglophone countries. That note may have been the most interesting element of the book from a Shakespearean perspective.) If you look at this book as a Tezuka retrospective, you're likely to get a lot more out of it.

And it is interesting. Even if the links aren't always perfect, something is fascinating about seeing one of English drama's greats through the lens of one of manga's best bards. It certainly makes me curious to read the rest of Vampires and The Rainbow Parakeet, and we do get a very clear sense of the progression of Tezuka's works as we journey forward in time from The Merchant of Venice to The Rainbow Parakeet. It's a treat to see some of Tezuka's lesser-known titles share space with Astro Boy, and even with the Shakespearean themes, no two stories are alike. Even within the three phantom thief tales, the thief himself and his detective pursuer are the only real carryovers from chapter to chapter, giving us a good idea of Tezuka's breadth as a creator.

That said, it is a bit too bad not to have clearer ties to Shakespeare and, honestly, more of the essays included between the chapters. The essays outline Tezuka's feelings about theater, manga, and Shakespeare while also talking about the reception of some of his works, and they're fascinating. The manga is good, but getting to go behind the scenes into Tezuka's mind makes them even better, and it's almost worth the price of admission for them alone. It does need to be mentioned that there are a few racist caricatures in the art (Ablaze and Tezuka Pro have a note about that in the beginning), but that's sadly par for the course for when Tezuka was working. Pick this up if you're a fan of his works, but maybe not if you're just in it for Shakespeare because, on that front, things are a little disappointing.

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Christopher Farris
Rating:

There's an inherent appeal of historical value in a collection mashing up Osamu Tezuka and William Shakespeare. An acknowledgment of the passage of the times as well, to be sure—It might seem overt to open on a block of text pre-warning the audience about racist depictions. But given that this is a collection of manga published as far back as 1959 and starts with The Merchant of Venice, you can quickly understand how this might be warranted. That chapter perhaps isn't this collection's best foot forward, but it winds up not mattering much due to the sheer breadth of approaches covered in Shakespeare Manga Theater. This somewhat straight adaptation of the story of Shylock gets a bit skippy and scattershot as it goes on, and the plain language presented through the translation is hardly, well, Shakespeare. Though Tezuka's cartoony sensibilities are solidly suited to the comedy genre here.

Beyond that, though, as I said, the book casts a wide net. One chapter later, I found myself reading Romeo and Juliet by way of an Astro Boy story arc, which itself went a bit off the rails to become about sports car racing for some reason. By another turn, there's the inclusion of an excerpt from Vampires which purports to be based on Macbeth. But the allusions in what's here are so surface-level and the audience isn't given much of it. Possibly because, by Tezuka's admission in some included quotes, Vampires wasn't particularly well-liked.

The Shakespeare theming thus comes off as a convenient collecting concept rather than a true uniting element for this anthology. Instead much of the real appeal is in seeing some of these odder corners of Tazuka's universe that might not get a chance to shine otherwise. It's tied together with those aforementioned author quotes providing some insight into his processes and appreciation for theater that informed several of these stories. That's especially apparent in the last three, being chapters starring the "Rainbow Parakeet," a combination actor/phantom thief. Parakeet's introductory Hamlet-themed chapter is particularly strong, and it helps that the Prince of Denmark was no stranger to plays within plays. The later stories still wander off-course, some, but there's a respectable energy to the creativity. Also a cool karate-kicking gun-slinging detective lady, that's important. Shakespeare Manga Theater does come off as more than the sum of its parts, though your mileage will vary on the entertainment value. It's best viewed as a curiosity, historical or otherwise.

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Kevin Cormack
Rating:

Anyone familiar with Tezuka's manga take on German director Fritz Lang's Metropolis knows he plays fast and loose with his adaptations. With Metropolis, Tezuka hadn't even seen the movie – he based his entire story on a single promotional image. At least with this volume, Tezuka was more familiar with the source materials – the perennial plays of British playwright William Shakespeare. The supplementary text interspersed throughout this volume is at pains to reinforce Tezuka's love for theater, recounting his experiences as a young man performing on stage as part of a variety of amateur theatrical troupes. Tezuka also credits theater as the inspiration for his “star system” of recognizable characters who show up in the mast majority of his works, playing different roles each time.

This eclectic collection is drawn from across the great breadth of Tezuka's career, and despite the title, mostly aren't direct adaptations of Shakespeare's works. Probably the closest to a retelling is Tezuka's “modern” version of The Merchant of Venice, where he casts his default shady villain Acetylene Lamp as the devious Shylock. For readers looking for Shakespeare filtered through Tezuka's endlessly creative lens, this first story is undoubtedly the most fitting.

Following this is Robio and Robiette, an extended episode of Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atom), a skewed SF take on Romeo and Juliet. Instead of two feuding Montague and Capulet families, we have two feuding robot inventors who program their respective creations to hate and destroy their opposite counterparts. The male-presenting Robio and female-presenting Robiette fall in love despite their creators' opposition, and it progresses in typical Shakespearean tragedy fashion. It's quite silly and very random, and Tezuka fans who own volume 16 of Dark Horse's Astro Boy release will already have this story. The translation by Frederick L. Schodt is even re-used (unlike the Dark Horse edition, this version isn't flipped to read left to right).

The remaining stories are much shorter, and their links to Shakespeare's plays become increasingly tenuous. A take on Macbeth shares little with its progenitor other than a scene with three witches. It seems to have been lifted from the middle of a longer story and doesn't work well on its own. There is a trio of delightfully odd tales starring the master of disguise, actor, and thief Rainbow Parakeet. The first centers around a stage production of Hamlet, while the others take only vague thematic cues from the Shakespeare plays they are named from.

Tezuka's art is, as always, instantly recognizable, with cartoonish, rounded characters and clean, draftsman-like backdrops. His sense of humor tends towards the anarchic and absurd. It's an acquired taste, as is his stream-of-consciousness style of storytelling. He's the master of the totally random ass-pull (such as the suddenly-appearing “rain-maker machine” in Robio and Robiette). Although his manga style seems quaint and outdated now, this is still an interesting, if bitty collection of random Tezuka works. It's unlikely to win him new fans, but for those already converted, it's a great addition to our burgeoning collection of English-translated Tezuka manga.