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I.L: La ragazza dai mille volti
Daisuke Imari, regista cinematografico in disarmo, incontra una vampira mutaforma di nome I.L, capace di interpretare qualunque ruolo e sostituire qualunque persona, con cui affronta avventure e nuove imprese, incrociando le vite e le storie di un'umanità per nulla rassicurante, dai tratti feroci e grotteschi. La dicotomia tra scienza e fantasia aiuta Osamu Tezuka ad affrontare alcuni tra i suoi temi prediletti: la corruzione della politica, la natura possessiva dell'amore, il ruolo di genere e la natura e i sentimenti degli esseri non umani.
334 pages, Paperback
First published August 10, 1969
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About the author
Osamu Tezuka
2,153 books1,291 followersDr. Osamu Tezuka (手塚治虫) was a Japanese manga artist, animator, producer and medical doctor, although he never practiced medicine. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion. He is often credited as the "Father of Anime", and is often considered the Japanese equivalent to Walt Disney, who served as a major inspiration during his formative years. His prolific output, pioneering techniques, and innovative redefinitions of genres earned him such titles as "the father of manga" and "the God of Manga."
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
October 5, 2021
Tezuka se marca historietas a lo "Blanco humano", sobre una mujer capaz de mimetizar a cualquier otra persona y utiliza ese poder para esclarecer/solucionar todo tipo de problemas: asesinatos, tramas políticas, corrupciones empresariales, crímenes de guerra... Lo mejor, aparte de la variedad y lo bien que capturan el espíritu de la época en que se crearon (entre los 60 y los 70), es que las historietas son autoconclusivas, de 20 o 25 páginas cada una, lo que limita la capacidad de perderse que muchas veces mostraba Tezuka. Lo peor... que la mayoría terminan de manera muy precipitada, hasta el punto que este calificativo queda muy corto para lo que realmente ocurre.
June 2, 2025
Having written and drawn in the order of 100 000 pages of comics during his long career, Osamu Tezuka is a creator with a highly diverse body of work. It’s no wonder then that I had never heard of I.L before it was released in English; it’s easy for a smaller story like this to disappear into the sea of Tezuka manga. I.L is a pearl worth diving for, though.
Some spoilers to follow.
The story is concerned with a failed filmmaker, director Imari Daisaku, a diminutive man of grand ambitions and experimental tendencies. Osamu Tezuka’s personal frustrations are on full display from the beginning of this book, when this visionary artist creates something commercially unviable and finds himself struggling and mocked for it. While looking for a new home, Imari stumbles into a creepy mansion inhabited by “Count Alucard” and a number of other horror figures, who wish to employ the down-on-his luck director to bring back a sense of wonder and mystery to the world by creating “incidents that defy logic”. As the means of accomplishing this, they provide him with the aid of a woman who can transform her appearance into that of any other person, and thus we are introduced to the eponymous I.L (her name is written down as “Aiel” on a tag attached a gift given her in one of the stories).
I.L’s ability lends itself to a variety of scenarios, and this lets Tezuka take the book’s basic premise into wild territory, and as I.L and the people she mimics take centre stage, director Imari falls back to being more of a bit player and Count Alucard practically disappears after his initial appearance. The story really isn’t about them; it’s about I.L herself, the people who need her help and the circumstances they find themselves in. These circumstances are often difficult and dire, and even with the aid of a perfect mimic they don’t always resolve in a way that could be considered happy for everyone – or sometimes anyone – involved.
There is a powerful contrast to be made between the classical horror icons who initially hand over I.L to Imari and the horrors that human beings commit over the course of this manga, the former being quaint and cutesy, while the latter are disturbing and properly horrifying. I.L herself is often risking her life, but rather than a simple damsel in distress, she becomes an active protagonist who seeks not only satisfactory resolutions to the situations she finds herself in, but also justice, according to her own values, and sometimes would-be perpetrators become her victims instead.
One page especially stood out for me: the top of it has a somewhat blurry but very real photograph reproduced of a man standing next to a tank with a swastika crudely painted on it. I was unable to find the specific photo off Google, but it looks like it was taken when the Soviets came to Czechoslovakia in 1968, just the previous year from when the comic itself came out, making this a very topical and daring piece of commentary. Below this Tezuka’s drawings depict a scene from a puppet show, where a wolf accuses a dog of various anti-communist activities, until finally devouring the dog despite its apparent innocence; two depictions of totalitarianism in action in vastly different styles. One could also point out how puppetry was a big thing in the Eastern bloc, even I had the pleasure of seeing some of that puppet work in children’s programming in the 90’s, so seeing puppeteers at work here is a delightful effet de réel.
I.L is a heavily political work. For example, in what is probably my favourite of the stories, Tezuka, an avowed pacifist, makes no secret of his views on the war in Vietnam – something that was very current at the time of the manga’s publication, rather than some distant memory – a subject that comes up during a story about an American soldier who rapes and murders five women in Vietnam. His rant to I.L has shades of Catch-22 to it:
“Mad? Of course. War is madness. And if you’re mad, you can’t be guilty. But somehow I’m guilty? That’s a contradiction, huh? You know why? That’s because the people who blame me are mad themselves. All the Americans, including the president. They’re all insane!”
Other stories involve such delightful japes as a kidnapping staged to finance the bail for political activists, using a newly rediscovered, painless stone-age poison for the euthanasia of a terminal cancer patient, assassination attempts and overthrown dictators… it would be absolutely unthinkable for such topics to be covered as they were (or featuring as much nudity or gore!) within the pages of a comic book published as the 60s turned to the 70s anywhere except in Japan. That’s not to say it’s all doom and gloom, Tezuka’s sense of humour and his sentimentality are equally represented among I.L’s cases, adding further variety to relatively short and episodic work.
Osamu Tezuka was always a trailblazer, pushing every boundary he came across. Some of his experiments were less successful than others, but I.L is a strong batch of stories and well worth reading.
Some spoilers to follow.
The story is concerned with a failed filmmaker, director Imari Daisaku, a diminutive man of grand ambitions and experimental tendencies. Osamu Tezuka’s personal frustrations are on full display from the beginning of this book, when this visionary artist creates something commercially unviable and finds himself struggling and mocked for it. While looking for a new home, Imari stumbles into a creepy mansion inhabited by “Count Alucard” and a number of other horror figures, who wish to employ the down-on-his luck director to bring back a sense of wonder and mystery to the world by creating “incidents that defy logic”. As the means of accomplishing this, they provide him with the aid of a woman who can transform her appearance into that of any other person, and thus we are introduced to the eponymous I.L (her name is written down as “Aiel” on a tag attached a gift given her in one of the stories).
I.L’s ability lends itself to a variety of scenarios, and this lets Tezuka take the book’s basic premise into wild territory, and as I.L and the people she mimics take centre stage, director Imari falls back to being more of a bit player and Count Alucard practically disappears after his initial appearance. The story really isn’t about them; it’s about I.L herself, the people who need her help and the circumstances they find themselves in. These circumstances are often difficult and dire, and even with the aid of a perfect mimic they don’t always resolve in a way that could be considered happy for everyone – or sometimes anyone – involved.
There is a powerful contrast to be made between the classical horror icons who initially hand over I.L to Imari and the horrors that human beings commit over the course of this manga, the former being quaint and cutesy, while the latter are disturbing and properly horrifying. I.L herself is often risking her life, but rather than a simple damsel in distress, she becomes an active protagonist who seeks not only satisfactory resolutions to the situations she finds herself in, but also justice, according to her own values, and sometimes would-be perpetrators become her victims instead.
One page especially stood out for me: the top of it has a somewhat blurry but very real photograph reproduced of a man standing next to a tank with a swastika crudely painted on it. I was unable to find the specific photo off Google, but it looks like it was taken when the Soviets came to Czechoslovakia in 1968, just the previous year from when the comic itself came out, making this a very topical and daring piece of commentary. Below this Tezuka’s drawings depict a scene from a puppet show, where a wolf accuses a dog of various anti-communist activities, until finally devouring the dog despite its apparent innocence; two depictions of totalitarianism in action in vastly different styles. One could also point out how puppetry was a big thing in the Eastern bloc, even I had the pleasure of seeing some of that puppet work in children’s programming in the 90’s, so seeing puppeteers at work here is a delightful effet de réel.
I.L is a heavily political work. For example, in what is probably my favourite of the stories, Tezuka, an avowed pacifist, makes no secret of his views on the war in Vietnam – something that was very current at the time of the manga’s publication, rather than some distant memory – a subject that comes up during a story about an American soldier who rapes and murders five women in Vietnam. His rant to I.L has shades of Catch-22 to it:
“Mad? Of course. War is madness. And if you’re mad, you can’t be guilty. But somehow I’m guilty? That’s a contradiction, huh? You know why? That’s because the people who blame me are mad themselves. All the Americans, including the president. They’re all insane!”
Other stories involve such delightful japes as a kidnapping staged to finance the bail for political activists, using a newly rediscovered, painless stone-age poison for the euthanasia of a terminal cancer patient, assassination attempts and overthrown dictators… it would be absolutely unthinkable for such topics to be covered as they were (or featuring as much nudity or gore!) within the pages of a comic book published as the 60s turned to the 70s anywhere except in Japan. That’s not to say it’s all doom and gloom, Tezuka’s sense of humour and his sentimentality are equally represented among I.L’s cases, adding further variety to relatively short and episodic work.
Osamu Tezuka was always a trailblazer, pushing every boundary he came across. Some of his experiments were less successful than others, but I.L is a strong batch of stories and well worth reading.
October 2, 2025
One wonders how many manga/anime enthusiasts remain who delight at encountering another awkward, random, and somewhat distasteful puzzle piece of Tezuka's 60s and 70s oeuvre. The answer? Enough. Five decades on, and English-language fans still encounter new content.
I.L belongs to the period of Tezuka's work that include myriad projects that grasped at thin air: the mythical, the awkward, the offensive, the political. Characters are corruptible. Institutions are prone to revolution. Narrative themes always involve extricating individual identity from the weight of professional obligation or the zealotry of industry expectation. I.L isn't a particularly compelling manga, but it rests rather comfortably in the pattern of purposeful content Tezuka produced at the time.
Imari Daisaku, a has-been movie director, has pushed the boundaries and perched on the shoulders of idiosyncrasy for the last time. He's not an outcast, but he's not hirable, which is just as bad. Daisaku is short, petty, opportunistic, and shrewd. He's also sensitive, and whether mourning the betrayal of his ex-wife or whining about how politics invariably screw up the arts scene, he means well but can't seem to catch a break. Until, of course, he falls into an offer he can't refuse.
The manga's namesake, I.L, is a woman who can change her appearance and voice with the aid of a magical coffin. I.L is a shapeshifter of unknowable origin and with ties to the occult. Her professional relationship with Daisaku, her personal quest to enrich her own personhood, and the overwhelming trauma she suffers in the interim, constitute the bulk of the comic's drama. I.L is not about a film director and his actress successfully circumnavigating a changing world. I.L is about an aimless man and a faceless woman who hope to relieve the anxieties and troubles of others, but only through dramatic (and sometimes violent) complications that involve lost love, disability, greed, sexuality, capitalism, and more.
Some episodes involve Daisaku and I.L owning tasks associated with bringing peace to those who claim to have earned it, such as terminally ill patients or those in desperate straits. But other episodes take a much darker turn, such as tracking down war criminals and rapists, deceiving political dissidents, or imprisoning and murdering fetishists.
The book's lack of consistency is as much a feature as one can expect. For example, when a story concludes with a heartfelt pan of a field of flowers, involving Daisaku and I.L laying to rest the remains of an innocent woman who was murdered by her obsessive lover, the story's exposure of the uneven balance between violent love and an unmolested peace is palpable. Similarly, I.L, what for being a shapeshifter, is often exposed to threats of violence, abuse, and more. Her only compensation is survival. And one must ask whether this consequence brokers a truth about I.L's influence as a woman of power, or about her value as a character destined for continual revival by way of a coffin.
I.L belongs to the period of Tezuka's work that include myriad projects that grasped at thin air: the mythical, the awkward, the offensive, the political. Characters are corruptible. Institutions are prone to revolution. Narrative themes always involve extricating individual identity from the weight of professional obligation or the zealotry of industry expectation. I.L isn't a particularly compelling manga, but it rests rather comfortably in the pattern of purposeful content Tezuka produced at the time.
Imari Daisaku, a has-been movie director, has pushed the boundaries and perched on the shoulders of idiosyncrasy for the last time. He's not an outcast, but he's not hirable, which is just as bad. Daisaku is short, petty, opportunistic, and shrewd. He's also sensitive, and whether mourning the betrayal of his ex-wife or whining about how politics invariably screw up the arts scene, he means well but can't seem to catch a break. Until, of course, he falls into an offer he can't refuse.
The manga's namesake, I.L, is a woman who can change her appearance and voice with the aid of a magical coffin. I.L is a shapeshifter of unknowable origin and with ties to the occult. Her professional relationship with Daisaku, her personal quest to enrich her own personhood, and the overwhelming trauma she suffers in the interim, constitute the bulk of the comic's drama. I.L is not about a film director and his actress successfully circumnavigating a changing world. I.L is about an aimless man and a faceless woman who hope to relieve the anxieties and troubles of others, but only through dramatic (and sometimes violent) complications that involve lost love, disability, greed, sexuality, capitalism, and more.
Some episodes involve Daisaku and I.L owning tasks associated with bringing peace to those who claim to have earned it, such as terminally ill patients or those in desperate straits. But other episodes take a much darker turn, such as tracking down war criminals and rapists, deceiving political dissidents, or imprisoning and murdering fetishists.
The book's lack of consistency is as much a feature as one can expect. For example, when a story concludes with a heartfelt pan of a field of flowers, involving Daisaku and I.L laying to rest the remains of an innocent woman who was murdered by her obsessive lover, the story's exposure of the uneven balance between violent love and an unmolested peace is palpable. Similarly, I.L, what for being a shapeshifter, is often exposed to threats of violence, abuse, and more. Her only compensation is survival. And one must ask whether this consequence brokers a truth about I.L's influence as a woman of power, or about her value as a character destined for continual revival by way of a coffin.
November 18, 2025
The influence of Osamu Tezuka on comics in general, but manga in specific, cannot possibly be overstated. He is insanely prolific...and also a little bit insane. As the postwar period rolled into the turbulent, protest-filled 60's and 70's, the comic-reading audience in Japan began to find Tezuka's whimsical pictures to be a bit dated. New artists were beginning their professional careers, and they were taking manga in a different direction. The new movement was Gekiga. It was violent, sexual, and explicitly political.
Tezuka found that this new generation of Japanese comics was lacking one crucial ingredient: Osamu Tezuka. He was the father of manga, and he would not be relegated to the pages of history. Anything these kids could do, he could do better! Except, not really, no, he couldn't.
I.L. is from that period of Tezuka's life where he tried desperately to become edgier, sexier, and more political. And, oh boy, does it read like someone desperately trying to be edgy. I.L. is a flailing attempt at relevance that mixes Count Chocula-style vampires with brutal depictions of war crimes in Vietnam. Gratuitous, terribly drawn (Tezuka himself acknowledges this) nudity fills every other page. It's shocking. It's strange. It's often cringe-inducing. It's also pretty creative.
Tezuka is a workhorse. The sheer number of different directions he goes with his work is staggering. Even when they don't pan out (and this most certainly did not), there is still something captivating about them. Even in these failed experiments, you can see glimpses of the mind that would define manga for generations to come.
I.L. is definitely only for real manga enthusiasts, but it's still Tezuka. I've said it before, and I'm sure all say it again....even Tezuka at his worst is still better than most.
Tezuka found that this new generation of Japanese comics was lacking one crucial ingredient: Osamu Tezuka. He was the father of manga, and he would not be relegated to the pages of history. Anything these kids could do, he could do better! Except, not really, no, he couldn't.
I.L. is from that period of Tezuka's life where he tried desperately to become edgier, sexier, and more political. And, oh boy, does it read like someone desperately trying to be edgy. I.L. is a flailing attempt at relevance that mixes Count Chocula-style vampires with brutal depictions of war crimes in Vietnam. Gratuitous, terribly drawn (Tezuka himself acknowledges this) nudity fills every other page. It's shocking. It's strange. It's often cringe-inducing. It's also pretty creative.
Tezuka is a workhorse. The sheer number of different directions he goes with his work is staggering. Even when they don't pan out (and this most certainly did not), there is still something captivating about them. Even in these failed experiments, you can see glimpses of the mind that would define manga for generations to come.
I.L. is definitely only for real manga enthusiasts, but it's still Tezuka. I've said it before, and I'm sure all say it again....even Tezuka at his worst is still better than most.
January 27, 2025
Film director Daisuke Imari was once the toast of the Japanese film industry but now has hit a creative wall. Fearing that the era of fantasy and wonder in film has been replaced by a thirst for realism, Imari struggles to find a place for himself in the landscape of contemporary filmmaking. Taking an invite to a house in a rural area, Imari is hired on to privately direct films for a mysterious group of benefactors, all revolving around the enigmatic shapeshifting being known as "I.L.", who most regularly takes on the form of a female mannequin. Told over six chapters, Imari's works explore strange realities and bizarre erotic fetishes, culminating in a dark tapestry of avant-garde films by the end.
I.L. is work serialized by Tezuka through '69-70, and the individual chapters do read like serialized work. The connective tissue across the chapters is quite weak, though Tezuka does maintain the filmlike quality of each story readily. Despite the rather mature and heavier tone of this manga, Tezuka's artwork is playful and energetic much like his more well known works. One can perhaps even connect the themes of I.L. to Tezuka's own shifting creativity, making the reader perhaps consider the possibility of an author-insert operating here. It's a fascinating set of stories that populate this volume, and though it's far from Tezuka's strongest work, it's compelling enough on its own.
I.L. is work serialized by Tezuka through '69-70, and the individual chapters do read like serialized work. The connective tissue across the chapters is quite weak, though Tezuka does maintain the filmlike quality of each story readily. Despite the rather mature and heavier tone of this manga, Tezuka's artwork is playful and energetic much like his more well known works. One can perhaps even connect the themes of I.L. to Tezuka's own shifting creativity, making the reader perhaps consider the possibility of an author-insert operating here. It's a fascinating set of stories that populate this volume, and though it's far from Tezuka's strongest work, it's compelling enough on its own.
April 11, 2025
An unusual read to be sure. A down-on-his-luck film director is fired from his gig. Then he goes to a mansion and Count Dracula and a bunch of monsters give him a naked shapeshifting vampire robot and tell him to go make weird stuff happen again because they're sad that the world has become too mundane following the 1969 moon landing.
That's the first chapter.
The remainder of the read is largely an anthology of the director and the robot, named I.L (pronunciation unclear. Eye dot ell?) inserting themselves in unusual scenarios and attempting to resolve them for assorted reasons.
Stories are mostly vaguely absurdist horror with a slight political bent. Often they feel quite dreamlike as things sometimes just sort of happen. But in a way that feels deliberate rather than lazy.
Artwork is classical and crisp and very enjoyable to read.
Overall, this is among the strangest things I've read in awhile, but I found it fascinating and I'm unlikely to forget it anytime soon.
That's the first chapter.
The remainder of the read is largely an anthology of the director and the robot, named I.L (pronunciation unclear. Eye dot ell?) inserting themselves in unusual scenarios and attempting to resolve them for assorted reasons.
Stories are mostly vaguely absurdist horror with a slight political bent. Often they feel quite dreamlike as things sometimes just sort of happen. But in a way that feels deliberate rather than lazy.
Artwork is classical and crisp and very enjoyable to read.
Overall, this is among the strangest things I've read in awhile, but I found it fascinating and I'm unlikely to forget it anytime soon.
December 20, 2025
I rarely ever open goodreads but when I do, I have a flaming desire to share something either of a magnificent and of an unforgettable read, or something so vile that my dissatisfaction cannot be contained. I am beyond happy to report that today is the day for me to share the former.
Never heard of Osamu Tezuka's I.L and now I will not forget it. Reading through a couple reviews on this site, I'll spare the boring wikipedia paraphrasing. Usually, I tend to be biased against political artwork, since it being such a low-hanging fruit that it is almost lazy to tackle.
Something about the dichotomy between the atrocities committed by humans and Alucard being cute, the classical manga art style and the minutely drawn details of absolute horrors depicted, the complete absence of the notion that things have to have a closure or a happy ending vs. to today's taste palette. How effortless it all is.
Read it.
Never heard of Osamu Tezuka's I.L and now I will not forget it. Reading through a couple reviews on this site, I'll spare the boring wikipedia paraphrasing. Usually, I tend to be biased against political artwork, since it being such a low-hanging fruit that it is almost lazy to tackle.
Something about the dichotomy between the atrocities committed by humans and Alucard being cute, the classical manga art style and the minutely drawn details of absolute horrors depicted, the complete absence of the notion that things have to have a closure or a happy ending vs. to today's taste palette. How effortless it all is.
Read it.
November 6, 2018
Onori e applausi alla BD per aver voluto ripubblicare l'opera omnia di Tezuka; personalmente, però, ritengo questa una delle cose più deboli dell'autore giapponese (pur sempre rimanendo nell'ambito dell'eccellenza, beninteso).
La storia di I.L e delle sue trasformazioni viene portata avanti di capitolo in capitolo: una serie di storie brevi, autoconclusive, tenute insieme in un unicum narrativo dall'introduzione e dalla conclusione.
Tezuka, come in altre sue opere, unisce il tema del trasformismo e del mascheramento per entrare a gamba tesa con una critica sociale che colpisce politici corrotti e affaristi senza scrupoli.
Buona lettura, ribadisco, ma non ai livelli di altre sue opere più (giustamente) blasonate.
La storia di I.L e delle sue trasformazioni viene portata avanti di capitolo in capitolo: una serie di storie brevi, autoconclusive, tenute insieme in un unicum narrativo dall'introduzione e dalla conclusione.
Tezuka, come in altre sue opere, unisce il tema del trasformismo e del mascheramento per entrare a gamba tesa con una critica sociale che colpisce politici corrotti e affaristi senza scrupoli.
Buona lettura, ribadisco, ma non ai livelli di altre sue opere più (giustamente) blasonate.
January 29, 2025
Another entry for Tezuka's catalogue of bizarre tales, this one is an anthology with the recurring titular shape shifter and the human director she's paired with, as they handle various cases for clients. Think something like Pet Shop of Horrors.
I do think that overall, part one of this manga is the stronger half. Here, we find off-the-wall lines such as "he had to look at a MOTH'S body in order to have sex with me" and toxic sapphic lovers.
The second half is more subdued with its stories, and while the ultimately tragic end of I.L. isn't unexpected for those versed in Tezuka's usual bittersweet melancholy, it also doesn't necessarily feel entirely earned. But this was overall quite the enjoyable ride as an insight into the foibles of humanity with a lightly sci-fi/supernatural bent.
I do think that overall, part one of this manga is the stronger half. Here, we find off-the-wall lines such as "he had to look at a MOTH'S body in order to have sex with me" and toxic sapphic lovers.
The second half is more subdued with its stories, and while the ultimately tragic end of I.L. isn't unexpected for those versed in Tezuka's usual bittersweet melancholy, it also doesn't necessarily feel entirely earned. But this was overall quite the enjoyable ride as an insight into the foibles of humanity with a lightly sci-fi/supernatural bent.
Read
May 5, 2025Osamu is funny as fuck for having his main character be a woman and then his author's note at the end is like "I'm really bad at drawing women, sorry. I don't know why I did that. I thought about fixing it for this collection but then I didn't. Sorry again."
October 26, 2025
An intriguing bit of reading.
As I was reading these, I was reminded of Tezuka's "Black Jack" stories since each chapter is an individual story about I.L. helping someone in trouble through her power of transformation and mimicry.
As I was reading these, I was reminded of Tezuka's "Black Jack" stories since each chapter is an individual story about I.L. helping someone in trouble through her power of transformation and mimicry.
December 30, 2018
3* e mezzo
February 1, 2025
Some of this has aged very roughly, but it’s still so fascinating. Also, I love the art.
Content warnings: sexual assault, violence against women.
Content warnings: sexual assault, violence against women.
March 31, 2025
Definitely not one of my favorites. Bit of a slog to read.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews