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Apollo no Uta #2
Apollo's Song, Part Two
In this second half of Apollo’s Song, Shogo, a young man whose abusive childhood has instilled in him a loathing for love, begins to see the virtues of love as he repeatedly experiences love lost from within the depths of his mind. Throughout the ages, his affections for others would bring him inspiration, strength and ultimately joy, unfortunately having been punished by the Gods each time a senerio appeared to be headed towards an ideal ending he would have love ripped from his heart every time. Shogo loses his heart and his soul in the process, before tragically dealing with the psychological scars of his childhood hatred.
Master storyteller Osamu Tezuka’s Apollo’s Song is a lyrical tour-de-force on the human spirit, the destruction of hate, and the triumph of love.
Master storyteller Osamu Tezuka’s Apollo’s Song is a lyrical tour-de-force on the human spirit, the destruction of hate, and the triumph of love.
264 pages, Paperback
First published October 17, 1977
3 people are currently reading
55 people want to read
About the author
Osamu Tezuka
2,149 books1,287 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 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 3, 2018
Al contrario del primer tomo donde se relatan varios episodios, la segunda parte puede verse como un único y amplio capítulo. Shogo va superando sus traumas infantiles mediante sucesos aún mas dramáticos desembocando en un buen final. El dibujo no descolla pero cumple sobradamente y la narración secuencial sí es una maravilla.
October 23, 2022
Esta es mi primera vez con Osamu Tezuka como mangaka y no me arrepiento en lo absoluto
El protagonista es lo mejor de la obra, tenemos su pasado, contrastes, evolución, gustos, etc. Un panorama bastante completo que es muy gustoso de leer
Los temas son fabulosos, un viaje fascinante sobre como el ser humano puede ver la vida, la muerte, el amor y la reproducción. Adoro como logra dar tantas perspectivas con tan poco tiempo de manera orgánica
Los mundos planteados son muy buenos, pero generan una curiosidad que no sera saciada con el tiempo, ya que se limitan a la trama misma, cosa que no es un problema en lo absoluto, de hecho es ventajoso para que la historia sea interesante y se desarrolle correctamente
Los secundarios son buenos a secas, no se exploran mucho. Aun así son mas que herramientas para la trama, sino que me los creo como engranajes que hacen funcionar un sistema, pero que es funcional por si solos
El final me dejo con un escalofrió en el cuerpo, tuve muchas ganas de abrazar a mi pololo despues de semejante intensidad. Por fortuna pude hacerlo
Estoy seguro de que me quede corto escribiendo de esto. Supongo que es en parte porque sigo procesándolo... le subiré la nota... sip, eso hare. Lo recomiendo
Lo recomiendo
El protagonista es lo mejor de la obra, tenemos su pasado, contrastes, evolución, gustos, etc. Un panorama bastante completo que es muy gustoso de leer
Los temas son fabulosos, un viaje fascinante sobre como el ser humano puede ver la vida, la muerte, el amor y la reproducción. Adoro como logra dar tantas perspectivas con tan poco tiempo de manera orgánica
Los mundos planteados son muy buenos, pero generan una curiosidad que no sera saciada con el tiempo, ya que se limitan a la trama misma, cosa que no es un problema en lo absoluto, de hecho es ventajoso para que la historia sea interesante y se desarrolle correctamente
Los secundarios son buenos a secas, no se exploran mucho. Aun así son mas que herramientas para la trama, sino que me los creo como engranajes que hacen funcionar un sistema, pero que es funcional por si solos
El final me dejo con un escalofrió en el cuerpo, tuve muchas ganas de abrazar a mi pololo despues de semejante intensidad. Por fortuna pude hacerlo
Estoy seguro de que me quede corto escribiendo de esto. Supongo que es en parte porque sigo procesándolo... le subiré la nota... sip, eso hare. Lo recomiendo
Lo recomiendo
June 7, 2013
Apollo’s Song Part 1 & 2
Apollo’s Song is the compelling and tragic story of Shogo, a young man who had a difficult relationship with his mother when he was young. Living without a father and an unloving mother that thinks of him as a burden and a mistake, he develops a hate for love and whenever he sees acts of love he is engulfed by a fury that would make him violent.
He acts cruelly through his childhood and when as a young man his is treated with shock therapy in a mental hospital he is condemned by the gods to an eternal punishment; moving through time and space, meeting, falling in love with, and then losing the same woman over and over again. The story takes us to Nazi Germany, an island ruled by peaceful animals, contemporary Japan, and a dystopian future where humanity has been subjugated by emotionless clones. Through these scenarios he explores the intricacies of love and sex, the demands they place on individuals, the sanctity in which we approach those concepts, and the challenges circumstance and society place in front of those in love.
The storytelling is natural and compelling. The layout, landscape, backgrounds, characters, and text all contribute seamlessly to the grand narrative. Like the best filmmakers, Osamu Tezuka, the creator of this manga, uses the focus of the frame to intensify the emotions of the scenes. For example in Part 1 there is a scene where a bird has to fight a snake to save his partner and their eggs. As the bird plunges down on the snake’s head, the bird gets injured and although the bird killed the snake, Tezuka shows us the pain of the victory by zooming in on the bird’s head slumped over the dead snake. We then see a panel showing the little bird crawling to his lover. While the birds console themselves Shogo lifts a boulder and throws it at their nest. Next is a panel showing the boulder crushing the birds followed by the figure of Shogo standing over the massacre. This constant zooming in and out of the action lets the reader understand the gravity of the situation and also the emotions associated with the consequences of the action. In that particular example, the reader gets a sense of futility when we get the looming figure of Shogo standing over the dead birds.
Tezuka is also a master of landscape; Mountains, Volcanoes, and Cityscapes are rendered in breathtaking clarity and depth. The effect of these landscapes is multifold. First and foremost they establish that the cartoony character design is a conscious style choice and not the result of a limited ability. Secondly, they provide a different kind of narrative depth than is present in the rest of the story. They can be looked at and interpreted as paintings. They are stories in themselves that can be read. Furthermore, they provide another level of connection between Shogo's different episodes, by drawing connections to the spaces in which they take place.
Apollo's Song asks challenging questions about love and is one of the only works I've read that truly explores the connection between the emotion of love and the biological function of procreation. This does limit its scope to heterosexual relationships, but, ultimately, as a work of literature, it does not suffer from this limitation. Furthermore, Tezuka can occasionally be heavy-handed with his text, especially when his characters are called upon to expound about love or the description of the environmental mistakes of our society. But, in his defence, it is almost impossible to speak directly about love without falling into some kind of exaggeration and cliché. Considering that he was writing before environmentalism became a mainstream idea, he would have needed to shout to make his point heard. In most works, these faults would not stand out, but Tezuka's work is generally so close to perfect that whatever flaws there are get magnified.
In my opinion the best part of the story is the futuristic dystopian story where synthians, artificial beings created by humans, have taken over the world. They are stronger and more intelligent than humans and that is why they have developed themselves in such a way as to being able to create themselves. Being superior to humans they started to disdain and distrust the flawed and violent humans. The humans on the other hand started to die off due to the pollution they cause. The sythians then found it easier to take over as the dominant species on earth. This story is so compelling because it is an argument that has been going on in other mediums for years. Basically it all revolves around what makes humans special and thus better than artificial life; be it robots or synthians. In this story Shogo is forced to show the Queen of the synthians the way humans love so that she can understand it. By the end of the story both Shogo and the Queen admit to loving each other. This is a dramatic turn of events which prompts the Queen to have a surgery that allow scientist to give her genitals, which all synthians do not have. It is a tragic tale that ends in a tragic way but it showcases Tezuka’s arguments of love being essential for humans and something that is universally transcended in such a brilliant way that readers will want more.
And the readers do get more! The story continues in such a dramatic way that by then end Shogo is cured from his hatred of love only to have his beloved once again killed. He decides to take his life so that he can be together with her in heaven. The climax of the two books is the page spread of the final explosion which carries with is a sense of gravitas. Shogo is once again at the presence of the gods who explain to him that he has to endure an eternity of all that he passed through as that is human nature. The book ends with a similar depiction of a man and a woman holding hands as a symbol for the drama of nature that love and the need to reproduce create.
Apollo's Song deserves the close reading of a literary novel and will reward those who do so. Tezuka is a master storyteller, and as graphic fiction continues to gain acceptance as a form of literature, his prominence will rise as one of the great writers of the last half of the twentieth century.
Apollo’s Song is the compelling and tragic story of Shogo, a young man who had a difficult relationship with his mother when he was young. Living without a father and an unloving mother that thinks of him as a burden and a mistake, he develops a hate for love and whenever he sees acts of love he is engulfed by a fury that would make him violent.
He acts cruelly through his childhood and when as a young man his is treated with shock therapy in a mental hospital he is condemned by the gods to an eternal punishment; moving through time and space, meeting, falling in love with, and then losing the same woman over and over again. The story takes us to Nazi Germany, an island ruled by peaceful animals, contemporary Japan, and a dystopian future where humanity has been subjugated by emotionless clones. Through these scenarios he explores the intricacies of love and sex, the demands they place on individuals, the sanctity in which we approach those concepts, and the challenges circumstance and society place in front of those in love.
The storytelling is natural and compelling. The layout, landscape, backgrounds, characters, and text all contribute seamlessly to the grand narrative. Like the best filmmakers, Osamu Tezuka, the creator of this manga, uses the focus of the frame to intensify the emotions of the scenes. For example in Part 1 there is a scene where a bird has to fight a snake to save his partner and their eggs. As the bird plunges down on the snake’s head, the bird gets injured and although the bird killed the snake, Tezuka shows us the pain of the victory by zooming in on the bird’s head slumped over the dead snake. We then see a panel showing the little bird crawling to his lover. While the birds console themselves Shogo lifts a boulder and throws it at their nest. Next is a panel showing the boulder crushing the birds followed by the figure of Shogo standing over the massacre. This constant zooming in and out of the action lets the reader understand the gravity of the situation and also the emotions associated with the consequences of the action. In that particular example, the reader gets a sense of futility when we get the looming figure of Shogo standing over the dead birds.
Tezuka is also a master of landscape; Mountains, Volcanoes, and Cityscapes are rendered in breathtaking clarity and depth. The effect of these landscapes is multifold. First and foremost they establish that the cartoony character design is a conscious style choice and not the result of a limited ability. Secondly, they provide a different kind of narrative depth than is present in the rest of the story. They can be looked at and interpreted as paintings. They are stories in themselves that can be read. Furthermore, they provide another level of connection between Shogo's different episodes, by drawing connections to the spaces in which they take place.
Apollo's Song asks challenging questions about love and is one of the only works I've read that truly explores the connection between the emotion of love and the biological function of procreation. This does limit its scope to heterosexual relationships, but, ultimately, as a work of literature, it does not suffer from this limitation. Furthermore, Tezuka can occasionally be heavy-handed with his text, especially when his characters are called upon to expound about love or the description of the environmental mistakes of our society. But, in his defence, it is almost impossible to speak directly about love without falling into some kind of exaggeration and cliché. Considering that he was writing before environmentalism became a mainstream idea, he would have needed to shout to make his point heard. In most works, these faults would not stand out, but Tezuka's work is generally so close to perfect that whatever flaws there are get magnified.
In my opinion the best part of the story is the futuristic dystopian story where synthians, artificial beings created by humans, have taken over the world. They are stronger and more intelligent than humans and that is why they have developed themselves in such a way as to being able to create themselves. Being superior to humans they started to disdain and distrust the flawed and violent humans. The humans on the other hand started to die off due to the pollution they cause. The sythians then found it easier to take over as the dominant species on earth. This story is so compelling because it is an argument that has been going on in other mediums for years. Basically it all revolves around what makes humans special and thus better than artificial life; be it robots or synthians. In this story Shogo is forced to show the Queen of the synthians the way humans love so that she can understand it. By the end of the story both Shogo and the Queen admit to loving each other. This is a dramatic turn of events which prompts the Queen to have a surgery that allow scientist to give her genitals, which all synthians do not have. It is a tragic tale that ends in a tragic way but it showcases Tezuka’s arguments of love being essential for humans and something that is universally transcended in such a brilliant way that readers will want more.
And the readers do get more! The story continues in such a dramatic way that by then end Shogo is cured from his hatred of love only to have his beloved once again killed. He decides to take his life so that he can be together with her in heaven. The climax of the two books is the page spread of the final explosion which carries with is a sense of gravitas. Shogo is once again at the presence of the gods who explain to him that he has to endure an eternity of all that he passed through as that is human nature. The book ends with a similar depiction of a man and a woman holding hands as a symbol for the drama of nature that love and the need to reproduce create.
Apollo's Song deserves the close reading of a literary novel and will reward those who do so. Tezuka is a master storyteller, and as graphic fiction continues to gain acceptance as a form of literature, his prominence will rise as one of the great writers of the last half of the twentieth century.
April 5, 2020
Esta segunda parte continúa con la idea de Shogo aprendiendo lo que es el amor y como es algo inherente a los seres humanos, esta vez a través de una historia larguísima y loca en el futuro. A pesar de los elementos que no envejecieron bien, la historia es mucho más profunda de lo que parece, y el arte es genial.
March 23, 2023
I probably should have read Part 1 first but it was $2.00 at the library’s used book sale and it’s Tezuka! It’s views on gender are a bit dated and it’s views on love and sex are flat out dangerous but the art is top-tier.
November 26, 2021
Venía muy buen, mUY BIEN y se me derrumbó todo con el final. 🤠
June 13, 2013
Firstly, I would recommend to buy this than Ode to Kirihito.
Secondly, if Tezuka replaced the goddess Athena with the Phoenix, there we would have had another chapter of Phoenix.
Thirdly, the idea and concept and story-telling part of this book are brilliant but not perfect. Sometimes it was like the story doesn't flow very smoothly. He could have done it ways better.
Fourthly, the story is a mixing metaphor of the Buddha teaching, the reincarnation set in Phoenix and the Greek myth. Many things for one to think of.
Lastly, whatever, it is still a must-read for Tezuka fans, amongst Phoenix and Buddha.
Secondly, if Tezuka replaced the goddess Athena with the Phoenix, there we would have had another chapter of Phoenix.
Thirdly, the idea and concept and story-telling part of this book are brilliant but not perfect. Sometimes it was like the story doesn't flow very smoothly. He could have done it ways better.
Fourthly, the story is a mixing metaphor of the Buddha teaching, the reincarnation set in Phoenix and the Greek myth. Many things for one to think of.
Lastly, whatever, it is still a must-read for Tezuka fans, amongst Phoenix and Buddha.
November 6, 2013
Apollo's Song (Part I and Part II) by Osamu Tezuka is a imaginative tale of out-of-body experience, time travel, fantasy, science fiction, mythology and love, all by the God of Manga himself. If you've never heard of Osamu Tezuka, you are missing out. He's best known in the United States for Astro Boy, his very early comic-turned-anime that was broadcast in the U.S. as a Japanese-import English-dubbed cartoon. Unfortunately, as great as Astro Boy is, it represents Tezuka's early work aim... Read More:
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December 15, 2015
Every time I read Tezuka I think I'll just breeze through and add it to the ol' Goodreads (goo dreads?) list, and be done with it. That never happens though, there's always surprising humor, sex, darkness, and ideas heavier than the Disney-style manga portends. An absolute master of the medium, Tezuka does read fast due to the amazing graphic "flow" of his pages. I have to consciously slow myself down to pay attention to the artwork.
July 7, 2012
Not as good as the first half. The ending feels too obvious even if cruel.
November 9, 2010
Hello, metaphor.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews