From a boxcar bound for a Nazi concentration camp to a dystopian future where humans are persecuted by their own clones, Apollo’s Song reaches Olympian heights of tragedy as it explores the meaning of love and the consequences of its absence. Salty, romantic, and at times profoundly erotic, the ambiguities of its poetic justice will plumb new depths of the heart with each rereading.
Dr. 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."
Started strong on the first two pages. Quickly delved into nonsense. Apollo should have punished this guy harder. What the heck, generally. Not enjoyable but did make me question things, such as the actions that lead to me reading it.
Created by the man behind the iconic “Astro Boy”, “Apollo” follows the misadventures of a teenage misfit named Shogo who hates seeing others in love whether they’re people or animals. He is brought to a psych ward by police and while under electric shock tests, he has strange visions caused by the goddess of wisdom Athena where he finds himself in different places involving danger and a girl by his side who seemingly are the same in each dream. It unexpectedly turns into a strange journey for him that will involve rebirth, clones, romance, death and heartbreak.
This is a very odd but twisty odyssey that tackles the human nature of romance while also being pretty erotic. Its tone does shift a lot from being awkward, dark, harrowing, mythical and even a little biblical. Shogo is not an easy protag to like given he can be abrasive about love and a bit violent, but is roughly relatable as we all want to find love and acceptance. The story is what still makes the manga worth reading as Shogo’s journey is like a futuristic drama that becomes a tragedy as he slowly learns what it feels like to love and lose that feeling. A story that truly shows how love is a very complex thing. B (75%/Good)
Shogo Chikaishi is an unhappy young man. He has no idea who his birth father was, and his mother supported them by inviting a string of horny men to her bed. She had little love to spare for her child, who often got in the way of getting her customers to part with their cash. Sometimes he even glimpsed moments of his mother and her clients making the beast with two backs, and was punished for it. As a result, he grew to hate physical affection and the procreative act.
So far, he’s only expressed this by attacking animals that he sees having sex or embracing, but the cops are concerned that it’s only a matter of time before Shogo starts attacking humans. So they take him to a sanitarium to be evaluated and treated. The doctor decides to try electroshock therapy right off the bat. This causes Shogo to have a vision in which he is cursed by the goddess Athena to constantly fall in love with the same reincarnated woman again and again, only to have tragedy befall each time.
He’s then transported to a life where he’s a German soldier in World War Two who falls in love with a Jewish girl being transported to the death camps. It ends about as well as you’d suspect.
Other apparent fantasy lives are one in which he’s a pilot who crash-lands on a deserted island with a female photographer he does not get along with, and the distant future of 2030 where he’s an assassin sent to kill the Synthian (gynoid) queen only to discover that she yearns to know the human emotion of love.
In what is presumably the real world, Shogo thinks he kills another patient and escapes from the hospital. He is picked up by a young woman named Naomi who tries to channel his energies into the more healthy pursuit of marathon running. Unfortunately, her fiancé strongly disagrees with this idea and tries to kill Shogo. Plus, it turns out that Naomi has an ulterior motive she didn’t initially disclose.
Love, it seems, is beautiful, but it is also tragic, and the cycle goes on.
This 1970 manga was published in a shounen (boys’) magazine, but reflected more mature subject matter than was more common at the time. Sex education was just then becoming accepted as a subject for teenagers, and as an actual trained doctor, Tezuka was a better choice than other manga artists to write about the topic. Thus this ode to the subject of eros, sexual love. By giving his protagonist a hatred of the sex act and putting Shogo through various trials that examine the concept of sexual love, we have a mostly satisfying character arc mixed with several mini-stories in different genres.
The art is primarily in Tezuka’s more serious style, with little of the comic relief normally seen in his work (though some readers may find it too cartoony for the subject matter.)
It should be remembered that Tezuka was progressive for his time, and this story was taboo-defying for 1970. By today’s standards, it’s kind of heteronormative, and very heavy on the concept that sexual love is ultimately meant to cause human beings to reproduce, and babies are the natural and intended result.
There’s a lot to chew on here, from the poor parenting of Shogo’s mother making him reject normal human emotions, through the possibilities of cloning, to a warning about ecological disaster if humans don’t mend their ways. (Fortunately, we managed to dodge the particular bullet that did in most of the humans by 2030, but we can still wreck the ecosphere if more steps aren’t taken.)
Content notes: Flaccid penis is right there on the initial splash page (which may remind some of you of the Woody Allen movie Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask despite a completely different tone.) General male and female nudity, onscreen sex both human and animal, rape, animal abuse, child abuse, suicide, anti-Semitism, period sexism. Sensitive readers below senior high level may want to skip this one.
Overall: You may have noticed if you’ve dipped into Osamu Tezuka’s body of work that it sometimes comes off as weirdly horny. This is him just openly having the story be about being weirdly horny. But not just about that, but cramming in a lot of other themes and ideas as well. This might do very well as a book club discussion for the right kind of book club. Recommended for romantic tragedy fans.
Weirdest thing I've ever read, and probably will hold that record for a long time. It's pretty outdated and might be even worse for a lot of western readers because it preachers heteronormativity. The women are definitely an "other" in this, just by the way they're drawn. The men are drawn naturalistically and are able to express unsexy and unflattering body movements and poses, but the girls are always slim with huge cleavage, sexy, and elegant. Not to mention constantly naked. Even the "sexless" Synthian Queen sports huge breasts. For what, Osamu Tezuka, for what? They're always drawn the same youthful age, whereas the the male characters have constant diversity. They're old, fat, slim, young, and this is when the art is really masterful because their personalities show through their character art.
Really though, I personally forgive the male gaze in this. I wasn't too bothered by it even though it's pretty lecherous about the main girl. It's just an old story so I only took off one star for the fanservice.
That brings me to why I really enjoyed it. The art is so charismatic. Published in 1970, this really has the old-manga style, and it just looks good. The nature scenes were really incredible. The way shrubbery, sunlight, trees, and detailed backgrounds were shown were so so so beautiful. It inspired me to take up drawing inked landscapes myself.
Another reason why this saves the outdated gender politics in this, is how good this story is conceptually. For as inappropriate (the nazi romance story), somewhat perverted, and unerotic this "erotic" story is supposed to be, it was legitimately entertaining. The constant flipping through universes the MC had to go through contrasted by the real world of doctors and police chases was conceptually great. I loved the main character and how he really did know what love was, but he convinced himself he was above it. One part of this story's absurdity was when his true love wanted to cure him by turning him into a marathon runner so she could vicariously live through him, and I laughed.
Do I recommend it? No. Not at all. Not in a million years. But I am so so so glad I read this.
This novel is a about a young man who was treated poorly during his childhood and developed a violent personality, wanting to kill anything that shows “love” (like animals or insects mating, or even people in love). After being admitted to a ward, he undergoes electric shock therapy where he transcends his reality and encounters the goddess Apollo (androgynous in this novel), who punishes him to undergo multiple rebirths where in each lifetime he falls in love. For example, in the first lifetime he is a German soldier who falls in love with a beautiful Jewish girl, and each rebirth places him in an absurd and almost impossible scenario to fall in love. This novel is extremely interesting because each rebirth is almost a separate story in the manga where we follow this man into his alternate life. Each life is incredibly robust and detailed, one of my favorite lifetimes was when he travels to a future where artificial intelligence reigns supreme, and humans are seen as low class animals. He falls in love with the queen of the artificial intelligence species, because she wishes to understand how humans experience love. This novel explores many complicated and deeply profound ideas surrounding love, the nature of reality, the absurdity of human existence, and all in all it leaves me with a feeling of enlightenment. This manga is a meditation on our own selves through these stories. This manga is my favorite because of this.
I found this to be so entertaining! Some of it was seriously so weird but it made me want to keep reading to see what absurd (and sometimes low key disturbing) event would happen next. But I like the mysterious and cyclical nature of the story and I couldn’t put it down
This is a book you'll either go WTF or you'll think it's an oddball classic. I lean more towards the latter. While the actual story may leave you scratching your head with its incredible and often inexplicable jumps in time and space, the underlying message is a mature examination of love and the psychology of someone whose capacity for love is seemingly nonexistent. Each episode builds a deeper understanding of the broken mind of protagonist Shogo. Tezuka is best known as the creator of Astro Boy, but this story is a far cry from that, having some mature sexual and violent content (including child and animal abuse). But the artwork is clean and lively as one expects from Tezuka. If you're willing to put up with some ambiguity, this work will help you think some deep thoughts.
A bunch of upsetting triggers in this one like animal cruelty, SA, and outdated gender politics/ maximum men writing women. Its a weird one folks. Its came out in the 70's so viewing Apollo through a historical lens is strongly recommended. The male characters are unique and have these great expressions, the landscapes and backgrounds have depth and detail, and all the women look the same. Them all having a similar personality at least makes sense narratively, but its a pretty flat one. The version of the lady on the island was the most dynamic. Her desperation towards the end of that arc over what she could lose over slut rumors was laid out rather clearly. No solutions offered, but calling it for what it was came off as sympathetic and I was surprised she got that much of an explanation. The women are punished as a tool to punish the man. (sorry this is the whole book. I'm female, I kinda cant ignore it. Its fine, like I said historical lens and all that, but i'm gonna cut this review shorter because its just gonna be pointing out the obvious misogyny throughout the whole book because the misogyny is part of the fabric of the thing.) Theres also an interesting view of 1970s era psychology. Electroshock and hypnotism make an appearance! Yeah its weird, its fast because graphic novel. Its written by the guy who basically set down the guidelines for what manga is today. Theres some fun playing around with the panels in a dynamic way. the story jumps around past, present, future, which is always interesting. Its an important work. Go in with and open mind and see what there is to see. Remember! Historical lens!
Osamu Tezuka's storytelling, both visual and writing, is fantastic at times in this, but the exploration of love and its absence felt very skewed, with its focus on romantic love that always felt rushed and unconvincing, and the exploration of parental love being mere crumbs in comparison, even when the absence of parental love is the main cause of Shogo's hatred for love.
And boy do I hate that to symbolize Shogo's mother not loving him, she couldn't produce breastmilk. And to add to the dated part, it said in the panel: "But sir, they say [formula] weakens the bond between mother and child!" which is absolute bullshit.
And for some extra ranting about the romance in this, it was all too often that sex was talked about as the "ultimate act of love", or that it should be that, in comparison to Shogo's mother being a sex worker. And I really disliked that moment when Osamu Tezuka decided suddenly that it wasn't exciting enough, so
Anyway, for the writing it's 1/5 stars, but the artwork sometimes make up for it, so I'll give it 2/5 stars.
I had no idea what to expect when going into this. I am familiar with the name Osamu Tezuka, but I had never read any of his work before. I just knew that he was considered the god of manga due to his work like Astro Boy, and Black Jack. So I was taken pretty aback by how dark and also emotionally deep this story went. The best thing I can compare it to, is that it’s very similar to A Clockwork Orange. We have a fundamentally broken person, who’s moral code coincides with violence and is then taken in by an institute to torture this out of him. So yes, it’s actually shockingly similar. The main difference is that this story used a much more confusing road to make its point, but definitely delivered in terms of entertainment value. I don’t want to say too much more because I don’t want to give everything away. But if you are curious about this one at all, definitely check it out. It’s intense to say the least, but that’s what makes it so enthralling to read.
This manga was one of the most captivating and ingenuitive ways to provide commentary on love and the mystery of it’s nature. From exploring all sorts of settings from a dystopian future to historically fictional past, the author can’t help but keep the reader engaged as we are dragged along on this journey. The manga is a one shot so it is quite a quick read as well, maybe ~3-4 hours for me, and im a slower reader, but I also tried to pay more attention to detail in illustration. Also, this novel is mainly centered around love but in the context of this book it very well delves into love and the absence of it in all forms, as opposed to solely in a romance, if you catch it. I will say it also explores sensuality or sex as that is part of the main message, but not truly graphically portrayed, more discussed than anything. Overall, I would 100% recommend this manga as a something to read and always come back to as it is fun, quick, and compelling.
This opens with thousands of anthropomorphized sperms racing towards a giant naked egg woman and only gets weirder from there. The basic plot is that a teenage boy has trauma from his mom being a hooker and so kills animals whenever he sees them fucking. He is sent to a mental institution where through electroshock therapy a goddess reveals to him that for his crimes against Love he is cursed to eternally be reincarnated in a tragic unrequited love, from Auschwitz to a deserted island full of zoo animals, to a sci-fi dystopia ruled by genital-less hysterical clones. Despite it all being about sex, Osamu Tezuka's trademark characters are so featureless, rubbery, and doll-like in their nudity that there is almost a weird sexlessness to everything. It is absolutely bonkers and arguably in pretty bad taste, but it certainly is something different. The whole comic is like a bad dream.
Some authors cannot do anything wrong with me. Tezuka is one of them. Apollo's Song. A tragedy it is named. But is it? Surely there's tragedy, as history keeps repeating itself and seemingly without a happy end. Are we humans doomed? Read it to form you own opinion. (written 50 years ago, still valid !) Tezuka has his own style (always recognizable) in his art work. His stories... are something else, you try to compare Apollo's Song to Princess Knight, completely different!! but.... Tezuka always worthwhile. (maybe intresting, opening scene in the book, looks very much like one of the stories from the Woody Allen movie "Everything you always wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask" made in 1972. Apollo's Song first published in 1970)
In true Tezuka’s fashion, this is quite the weird one. Can you conceive a mix of alternative existences, pathological cruelty, reflections about the nature of love, Oedipus complex, dystopian futures, sex, and dream-like experiences? Well, it seems Tezuka could, without many problems at that. It’s best to read it more as a oneiric metaphor than a rational story, because many of the events we witness are quite implausible. The ending itself seems to suggest this is the right interpretation, but the manga is quite open about its possible meaning. Perhaps not the author’s best moment, but for sure an engaging tale showcasing once again Tezuka’s unbraided fantasy and ability to develop multiple layers of narrative in the same work.
Shogo brutally kills animals that show affection so to cure him the Doctor decides to place him in an A.I. environment where he becomes vile, nasty, browbeats women with his tale of woe, is an assassin, pushes people off cliffs and ramps up the violence by a factor of 10. Most of this is to become........... .....a marathon runner.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
oscillating wildly between four and five stars for me, but especially pushing its way into five territory anytime I take a peek at negative reviews. lordy. Apollo’s Song is comics as epic literature. even if the shape this epic takes has its wrinkles, there’s simply too much achievement to appreciate—to write it off as anything less than medium-defining is abject silliness.
Pretty dated with lots of heteronormativity that I’m not used to seeing anymore. Still, interesting art style and story - didn’t resonate with me as much as I expected. Probably was pretty revolutionary in the 1970s, but doesn’t stand the test of time for me.
I've been wanting to try more manga, and I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Another work I feel I've come across at the right time in my life. I'm glad to have read and enjoyed it. Likely my first introduction to further readings in the medium.
I was excited to discover a Tezuka translation I’d not read. And I’m enjoying the other one star reviews. This was very confusing and kinda without point. Lots of talk of genitalia 🤔 curious about the Japanese words used 🤷🏻♂️