JUST DOING THIS TO MESS WITH OUR HEADS

Wouldn't it be great if Kodansha's "Osamu Tezuka Manga Complete Works" editions were in English? Well, they kinda are.

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Yes! A charmingly typewritten synopsis of his classic shojo manga PRINCESS KNIGHT! True, the rest of the comic is in Japanese, but it's a start. Is there more?

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AMBASSADOR MAGMA aka SPACE GIANTS! All right! So, how different is this from the Space Giants show we enjoyed as children?

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Yeah, that's pretty different. For one thing, token Caucasian reporter "Liz" isn't even mentioned! Hey, what about KIMBA THE WHITE LION, you know, JUNGLE EMPEROR?

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No, that's not Santa Claus there, it's Hige Oyaji and a grown-up Kimba - now named Leo - bravely facing the elements atop Mount Moon! A grown up Kimba?? What the heck?

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Yes, the original manga goes places NBC would not dare to enter. At least not in cartoon form. But enough of these popular Tezuka works - did Kodansha release Complete Works editions of his more, shall we say, obscure manga?

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Yes! Yes they did. JET KING, the story of an alien boy who can change his shape at will to better defeat evil, has a spoiler right in the English synopsis, so don't read it! Also in this volume, HIKARI is the story of a boy with crazy hair and two handguns who fights gangsters. Based on a true story.

But what about ASTRO BOY? I can hear you now, where's TETSUWAN ATOMU? Okay, here's your MIGHTY ATOM already.

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This volume contains the story "The Three Magicians", which was one of the first Astro Boy stories I was ever exposed to, as it is also the subject of this LP:

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Those three magicians get around.

Somebody should take the hint and get to work giving this classic Tezuka manga some actual North American releases; PRINCESS KNIGHT would sell like cotton candy at the fair and who would pass up a chance to own the original stories behind SPACE GIANTS and KIMBA THE WHITE LION? Not me! In the meantime, I suppose we'll have to be content with 30 year old typewritten summaries.