Dark Horse proudly presents another of the crown jewels of international graphic fiction—Astro Boy! Created by the late Osamu Tezuka, a revered animator and cartoonist—who created over 150,000 pages of comics in his career!—and considered the Walt Disney of Japan, his Astro Boy was the first manga series to be adapted to animation and became a worldwide phenomenon, making Astro Boy the Mickey Mouse of anime—a jet-powered, super-strong, evil-robot-bashing, alien-invasion-smashing Mickey Mouse, that is! ... more>>

Exciting, whimsical, and touching, Astro Boy hearkens back to the classic era of comics and animation, featuring stories that readers young and old will enjoy. <<less

This Manga deals with parenting, depicting the daily lives of cartoonist Ohsamu Tetsuro, who strongly resembles Tezuka Osamu himself, and his family.... more>>

The story begins with the birth of his first son. The son is named Makoto (nicknamed Mako) and grows to be a healthy 2 year-old, basking in the love of his orderly mother and careless father. The son is followed by two daughters named Rumiko (nicknamed Rumi) and Chiiko (nicknamed Chii). This story focuses on the increasing hustle and bustle inside the Ohsamu family. <<less

James Block is a former sports star whose criminal endeavors landed him in jail. In prison he meets "Dr. F", a strange old man who tells James about a beam that can turn living things invisible.... more>>

After escaping from prison, James finds and uses the laser on himself. But, because the beam has not been perfected yet, it only rendered his skin invisible, leaving his insides visible to the outside. Angered at his disfigurement, James takes the name "Alabaster" and begins eliminating the hypocrites and the boastful. He is joined by Ami Ozawa, the granddaughter of "Doctor F", who was rendered invisible after the doctor used his pregnant daughter as an "F Beam" test subject.

On their trail is Rock, a vicious FBI agent. <<less

Wandering the packed tunnels of Shinjuku Station, famous author Yosuke Mikura makes a strange discovery: a seemingly homeless drunk woman who can quote French poetry.... more>> Her name is Barbara. He takes her home for a bath and a drink, and before long Barbara has made herself into Mikura's shadow, saving him from egotistical delusions and jealous enemies. But just as Mikura is no saint, Barbara is no benevolent guardian angel, and Mikura grows obsessed with discovering her secrets, tangling with thugs, sadists, magical curses and mythical beings - all the while wondering whether he himself is still sane. <<less

On his way home from school, the shy young boy Tecchin finds the body of a young girl lying in the street. He alerts the... more>> police, only to come back to find she has been replaced with a life-sized doll. Tecchin takes the doll home and repairs it. She comes to life and tells him that they are both Grand Dolls, alien beings bent on world domination. <<less

Still in her early twenties, beautiful Toshiko Tomura has won the Akutagawa Prize for her story “The Book of Human Insects.” The great honor is... more>> not her first: she has previously won the New York Design Academy Award, before which she was the lead actress of an established theatrical troupe. Yet, while the media go abuzz, the woman in the limelight slips away from the metropolis; what the sole paparazzo who manages to trail her to an abandoned country house witnesses is an immobile figure of an old woman and the star herself, naked, in a reverie as bizarre as it is erotic… <<less

Imagine a world where the insects of the Earth have decided to revolt and enslave humanity, and shrink them down to a size that would... more>> make them seem to be insects to the new Insect overlords. This new race of humanity is called Michroids, and they are trying to find their new role in the world… <<less

Apollo´s Song follows the tragic journey of Shogo, a young man whose abusive childhood has instilled in him a loathing for love so profound he finds himself compelled to acts of violence when he is witness to any act of intimacy or affection whether by human or beast. His hate is such that the gods intervene, cursing Shogo to experience love throughout the ages ultimately to have it ripped from his heart every time. From the Nazi atrocities of World War II to a dystopian future of human cloning, Shogo loses his heart, in so doing, healing the psychic scars of his childhood hatred.... more>>

Volume 3 includes the oneshot Rubbish Poetry (がらくたの詩) <<less

Midnight is the story of a taxi driver named Shinya Mito (whose name is literally Japanese for "mid" and "night") and his various passengers, each... more>> of whom he helps in various ways. Shinya drives a taxi as a way to earn money for the treatment of a young woman named Mari, whose brain was injured sometime earlier as the result of an accident Shinya was responsible for causing. The taxi Shinya drives is equipped with a fifth wheel which makes the car more maneuverable under any kind of road conditions. <<less

In a jungle in Africa right on the equator there was a white lion, Panja, who was called the "Emperor of the Jungle." But Panja... more>> is killed by a hunter. His wife, the Queen of Jungle, who has been caught by the hunter, gives birth to the son of Panja on a ship bringing them to a zoo. She names her son "Leo" and has him escape from the ship, saying, "Go back to Africa and become the successor of your father." Then a storm comes and the ship is overturned, and sinks with the Queen on it. Leo is washed up on the beach of a port town in the Arabian Peninsula, not Africa. This is where Leo's long adventure begins. <<less

The story revolves around a mysterious place called "Angel's Island" that resides somewhere on the ocean seas. Living on Angel's Island are a species of... more>> merpeople that can live in both the sea and on land. They have the form of a human, but can breath in water as well as on land. Luna is a princess of this species of mermaid living on Angel's Island, but is exiled for breaking some of their rules. As punishment, she is placed inside a sea shell, and set adrift across the sea. Meanwhile Eiji Kusahara, the son of a wealthy Japanese family, meets Soleiu (Luna's older sister) and they try to discover the mysteries behind Angel's Island. <<less

A graveyard in contemporary Israel has an unlikely visitor. The elderly gentleman from Japan, a former news correspondent, lays a bouquet of flowers at the tomb of one Adolf Kamil. For he remembers the tale of three Adolfs: Kamil, a Jew who grew up in Kobe, Japan, the son of a baker; Kaufmann, only child of a German consul stationed at that port city and his Japanese wife; and the Fuhrer with whom the Far Eastern nation made common cause.... more>>

Won the 10th Kodansha Manga Award for general manga in 1986 (shared with ). <<less

The story begins with a scientist, Dr. Yorkshire Bell, noting that dinosaurs flourished and became extinct when they advanced beyond their ability to adapt to... more>> change. Giant mammals, such as the saber-toothed tiger and the mammoth, came and went the same way <<less

Aliens have created a tomcat endowed with the seven exceptional faculties similar to Astro Boy's. Supporting his owner, Tsugio, who is a sissy boy, this... more>> tomcat named Atomcat runs actively far and wide through the universe. --- This is a fascinating work resulted from Tezuka Osamu's challenging endeavor and daring to remake "Astro Boy." <<less

The ocean holds many tales. Tales of mermaids, of underwater kingdoms, and of fantastical beasts lurking in the deep. Spurred by these tales, Kazuya sets... more>> out to find the truth, but what he finds is a baby?! Not just any baby, the baby Kazuya finds is Triton! The last of a once mighty and proud race of people from the sea. Triton seems human, but unusual and terrible events begin to happen with all those around him. Who is Triton, and why does he bring misfortune to everyone around him? From the imaginative mind of Osamu Tezuka, creator of the beloved AstroBoy series, comes his original and thrilling take on the legend of Atlantis: Triton of the Sea! <<less

The manga that made Tezuka famous. It is an action-adventure drama inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's book. ... more>>

One day a boy named Pete finds a map of "Treasure Island" that his deceased father left behind. He starts on a voyage to find it together with "Captain," who was a friend of his father. But his ship is attacked by pirates, led by Bowarl, and the two are caught. When a storm hits the pirate ship, the two are thrown into the sea and washed up on the shore of a solitary island in the southern ocean. To their surprise, this island is the one they have been looking for....

The Western-style art and fast-paced storyline attracted much attention, and it became a best seller with 400,000 copies sold, laying the groundwork for the manga craze and its modern style.

The original version of "New Treasure Island" was based on Tezuka Osamu's manuscript, but substantial modifications were made by Sasaki Shichima, who cut nearly 60 pages and also changed some of the lines. When publishing "The Complete Works of Tezuka Osamu," Tezuka Osamu remade it based on his memory to make it closer to his original. <<less

In the wilderness of Hokkaido, the Ainu people of Japan live in harmony with nature. Kotan Nakamura is a young Ainu boy living peacefully until he meets a tiger one day. This tiger, Dan, has escaped from a train that was carrying him to a zoo. Together, they discover mysterious ruins hidden underneath the ground.... more>>

Within the ruins, Kotan and Dan discover an old man named Upopo living there. He tells the boy and the tiger about three keys to a fantastic treasure. As it so happens, the evil Sekkoku Kou is also searching for the treasure and shoots Upopo. Before he dies, Upopo gives one of the keys to Kotan.

Now, Kotan and Dan find themselves involved in an ugly battle as numerous villains track them down to try to get the three keys so they can claim the treasure. <<less

Short story collection of a variety of more mature Tezuka work. The story "Clockwork Apple" was borrowed from the book, before the movie was made,... more>> but has very little to do with the book either as Tezuka admits to writing it without reading Clockwork Orange. <<less

In 1961 Shichiro was put into hibernation by his father to survive the nuclear war he suspected would come. It is now 2061 and humanity... more>> lives in space and is trying to return to Earth. Shichiro wakes at the foot of a mountain and after being rescued discovers that he is the 7th person ever who is immune to the aftereffects of Hydrogen bombs, which puts him in a unique position to help humanity return home, armed with some of his father’s inventions and with the help of the previous 6… <<less

Someone - or something - is destroying the seven most powerful robots in the world one after the other; brutally dismantling them without any provocation on their part. Gesicht, one of the seven and a detective for the European Federation, embarks on a mission to capture the killer...and confront the mysteries behind the vague but disturbing memories that keep haunting him in his dreams.... more>>

Note: Won the Seiun Award for Best Comic in 2010. <<less

Princess Knight is a fast-paced tale of a heroic princess who can beat any man at fencing, yet is delicate and graceful enough to catch the eye of Prince Charming.... more>>

A mischief-making angel’s prank goes too far when the newborn princess of Silverland ends up with two hearts—one male and one female. Since the laws of Silverland only allow a male heir to ascend the throne, Princess Sapphire is raised as a prince. But will the avaricious Duke Duralumin discover Sapphire’s true nature and snatch the crown for his own son? <<less

Osamu Tezuka’s vaunted storytelling genius, consummate skill at visual expression, and warm humanity blossom fully in his epic of Siddhartha’s life and times. Tezuka evidences his profound grasp of the subject by contextualizing the Buddha’s ideas; the emphasis is on movement, action, emotion, and conflict as the prince Siddhartha runs away from home, travels across India, and questions Hindu practices such as ascetic self-mutilation and caste oppression. Rather than recommend resignation and impassivity, Tezuka’s Buddha predicates enlightenment upon recognizing the interconnectedness of life, having compassion for the suffering, and ordering one’s life sensibly. Philosophical segments are threaded into interpersonal situations with ground-breaking visual dynamism by an artist who makes sure never to lose his readers’... more>> attention.

Tezuka himself was a humanist rather than a Buddhist, and his magnum opus is not an attempt at propaganda. Hermann Hesse’s novel or Bertolucci’s film is comparable in this regard; in fact, Tezuka’s approach is slightly irreverent in that it incorporates something that Western commentators often eschew, namely, humor.

Note: Won the Bungei Shunju Manga Award in 1975. Won the Eisner Award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material in 2004 and 2005. <<less

Michio Yuki has it all: looks, intelligence, a pedigree as the scion of a famous Kabuki family, a promising career at a major bank, legions of female admirers. But underneath the sheen of perfection lurks a secret with the power to shake the world to its foundations.... more>>

During a boyhood excursion to one of the southern archipelagos near Okinawa, Yuki barely survived exposure to a poison gas stored at a foreign military facility. The leakage annihilated all of the island’s inhabitants but was promptly covered up by the authorities, leaving Yuki as an unacknowledged witness—one whose sense of right and wrong, however, the potent nerve agent managed to obliterate.

Now, fifteen years later, Yuki is a social climber of Balzacian proportions, infiltrating the worlds of finance and politics by day while brutally murdering children and women by night—perversely using his Kabuki-honed skills as a female impersonator to pass himself off as the women he’s killed. His drive, however, will not be satiated with a promotion here and a rape there. Michio Yuki has a far more ominous objective: obtaining MW, the ultimate weapon that spared his life but robbed him of all conscience.

There are only two men with any hope of stopping him: one, a brilliant public prosecutor who struggles to build a case against the psychopath; the other, a tormented Catholic priest, Iwao Garai, who shares Yuki’ls past—and frequently his bed. <<less

The year is 1949. Crushed by the Allied Powers, occupied by General MacArthur´s armies, Japan has been experiencing massive change. Agricultural reform is dissolving large... more>> estates and redistributing plots to tenant farmer´s terrible news, if you are landowners like the archconservative Tenge family. For patriarch Sakuemon, the chagrin of one of his sons coming home alive from a P.O.W. camp instead of having died for the Emperor is topped only by the revelation that another of his is consorting with the reds. What solace does he have but his youngest Ayako, apple of his eye, at once daughter and granddaughter? <<less

A promising young doctor, Kirihito Osanai visits a remote Japanese mountain village to investigate the source of the latest medical mystery. While he ends up... more>> traveling the world to discover what it takes to be cured of such a disease, a conspiracy back home attempts to explain away his absence. Hinging upon his fate are those of his loved ones: an unstable childhood friend and colleague trapped between factions of the medical establishment that nurtured him; a fiancee emotionally transformed by Kirihito’s mysterious disappearance; and a stranger who becomes his guardian angel, a sensual circus-act performer with volatile psychological secrets. <<less