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Words might demand translation, but images are universal. Still, distorting the illustrations is a mistake. At least the editors appear to have bothered preserving the correct orientation in panels that feature text as part of the scenery, rather than in the speech balloons. Unfortunately, Vertical opted to mirror the artwork so that the book can be read left to right! Why? Did the editors expect that the nerds and Japanophiles who would seek out some obscure, grizzly Tezuka manga aren’t willing to read right to left? This poor decision doesn’t ruin Tezuka’s artwork, per se, but does leave the whole book feeling a little off, and the characters’ suits buttoned and kimono folded on the wrong side.

These days, the standard practice for the “Western” translations is to simply ask the audience to adjust to reading panels from right to left. Japanese comics, being written, of course, in Japanese, read right to left. The Vertical printing suffers from a particular misstep. Though I am half-certain that the image used for the transformed Kirihito is not actually Kirihito! The book. The only other novelty dust covers that come to mind are those of David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp and Brian Lee O’Malley’s Seconds. Evidently, Ode to Kirihito, though a paperback, included a dust jacket that concealed half the cover, allowing the reader to slide it back and forth to see Kirihito before or after his transformation. Credit your translators, people! They’re essential! The later English printings divide the book into two volumes, a sensible enough decision, given that this nearly one-thousand-page first edition can be a bit ungainly to hold. In this case, I read the 2006 printing from Vertical, translated by Camellia Nieh. It is not an especially famous or representative work (and is awful). Ode to Kirihito happens to be the most recent of Tezuka’s books I have read, of course in English translation. The rejected medical career might be salient, given the subject of this post.

For his rejection of a safer medical career in favor of his artistic passion, his obsessive dedication to productivity, and his perhaps unparalleled output of cartoons, he is a personal hero of mine. The venerable Tezuka-sensei is like Mark Twain in one way, at least: he needs no introduction. Tezuka Osamu (1928–1989) is like Mark Twain, not in that his writing is like Mark Twain’s, but in that he is a writer whom I like even though, if asked, I could not point to any story of his I can honestly say I like.