On the heels of the impending conclusion of his Tezuka tribute manga Pluto, Naoki Urasawa has already begun serialising his next series Billy Bat. Intended to educate the younger generation on post war Japan, Billy Bat tells the story of Kevin Yamagata, a half Japanese-American comic strip artist working in the United States with his series “Billy Bat” but returns to Japan after FBI agents comandeer his office to spy on a neighbor who has been fingered as a communist sympathizer.
The mystery of Billy Bat quickly expands to include murder–seemingly involving Yamagata–and a mysterious bat symbol that seems to have a religious following, not unlike the now-familiar hand-eye symbol associated with the sinister Friend in 20th Century Boys.
“Human history is tied to that kind of thing [symbols], and it has always been the expression and source of culture. It has repeatedly brought out the good and evil in people and guides them in good and bad directions. I think it’s a pretty consistent theme,” Urasawa says, refusing to expand on which direction the mysterious bat symbol will lead the reader. Nagasaki, however, drops a few possible hints: “When we started thinking about the series, we thought about, for example, what if Billy Bat was like Jesus Christ, and it might have this sort of ancient mystery about it? I was also interested in the idea of what if the very first image of God that humans ever saw was this [image of a bat]?”
There is another idol, however, that Nagasaki imagines Urasawa may have been considering when he was developing the story: “I have a feeling Urasawa wanted to tell the story of Walt Disney. I, however, had no intention of telling Disney’s story.”
Though this may seem like a bit of a stretch to the casual reader, the influence could be seen in the first two installments, both of which were drawn as a “Billy Bat” comic within the manga. The style, inspired by the likes of Dick Tracy and other comics of that era, was nothing like that found in Japanese manga. It was even printed in full color–very unusual for the cheap, weekly comic magazines–complete with the look of aged, browning paper, to add to its initial claim of being a genuinely rediscovered American classic. For this reader, it was a refreshing change of pace to see an established mangaka try something new and adventurous. On Internet blogs and fan sites, however, there was a backlash against the “new style.”
“When we were with [publisher] Shogakukan,” Nagasaki explains, “I think our readers would’ve gone along with Urasawa’s different style for Billy Bat. But since moving to Kodansha, I think we lost a bunch of readers with the first couple of stories. There are mangaka who want to do an American-style comic, but nobody has succeeded with doing it.”
Urasawa, however, didn’t think much of the reaction. “Recently, there are more readers who expect that I wouldn’t continue in that way [the first installment of Billy Bat], so there were a lot of people who expected it was a gimmick, since I’m a writer who uses a lot of gimmicks like that,” he says. “So they were wondering when I would switch back to normal, and that’s fun for me to play with.
“I want to experiment with the freedom to switch back and forth between styles and storylines; I don’t think too far ahead in the story; I want to see if I can get the readers to follow along with me. That way, I can maybe push things further.”
What’s most interesting about this article are Urasawa’s comments on wrapping up Pluto:
As Urasawa settles into his new series, he is preparing for the final installment of Pluto in April. The series, which has received awards including the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize, is based on “The Greatest Robot on Earth” from Tezuka’s Astro Boy, a story arc about the murders of the world’s most advanced robots. The project was a successful, but stressful, one for both Urasawa and Nagasaki.
“I can finally relax; the weight is off my shoulders,” says Urasawa, whose other hit series have included Yawara, Monster and Pineapple Army.
“I won’t do that again,” Nagasaki exclaims.
The trouble with Pluto, the movie rights for which are currently under negotiation in Hollywood, was in the duo’s own expectations. “For Japanese, Osamu Tezuka is known as the God of Manga. And for me, I wouldn’t be doing this job if it hadn’t been for him. To be given that major work to see through to the end–that’s a lot of pressure,” Urasawa says. “There was this one Tezuka fan that kept telling me his fans would hate what I was doing–and I realized only recently that Tezuka fan was actually me.”
It was the end of a series that began in 2003, to coincide with the 40th birthday of Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy). Urasawa and Nagasaki negotiated for a year to get the permission to do the story, despite Urasawa’s reluctance–based on both existing workload and a bit of fear–to get involved. “I said somebody ought to do something on the level of ‘The Greatest Robot on Earth,’ otherwise the younger readers wouldn’t get Tezuka’s accomplishments. But I had no intention of doing it myself. Everybody told me I should do it, and I said, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’”
After prodding from Nagasaki and a series of brainstorms, the resulting story idea seemed too good to let anybody else do, according to Urasawa, who describes that particular story as a manga that opened his generation’s eyes. “It wasn’t about a righteous robot that took down bad robots, it was about the emptiness of war,” Urasawa recalls. “When I read that when I was about 4, I felt like I had been told a very deep story, something meant for adults. I think everyone felt that way when they read it. It was never actually meant for kids.”
Both Urasawa and Nagasaki say the story sticks to the original plotline, but there are a couple of revelations for readers in the final installment, one about the protagonist, a robot detective called Gesicht, and the other “a pretty good surprise.”
Urasawa’s most recent works have all been hits critically and commercially, with each of them big-screen bound. (Monster is currently in preproduction.) The still-young Billy Bat is promising, but nothing, according to Nagasaki, is a given. “There’s no one who can always stay at the top,” Nagasaki says. “Naoki Urasawa has always been at the top. It’s only natural that he will fall from that position at some point. For me, each venture is risky. I might end up thinking, ‘If we had only stopped at that last one…’ I like him: That’s why I work with him. But every time, I think, ‘This might be it.’”
On a wing and a prayer: Hitmaker mangaka Urasawa turns to period fiction with his new ‘Billy Bat’ [via Daily Yomiuri]
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