©Tezuka Productions ©ISHIMORI PRODUCTION INC.
Original manuscripts of the Tetsuwan Atom (Astro Boy) series by Osamu Tezuka
Published in the monthly Shonen magazine from April 1952 to March 1968
Tezuka Productions
©Tezuka Productions
Original manuscripts of the Cyborg 009 series by Shotaro Ishinomori
Published in the weekly Shonen Magazine from the 27th and
the 30th issues in 1966 to the 13th issue in 1967
Ishimori Productions
©ISHIMORI PRODUCTION INC.
Inspired by an article in an American scientific magazine, Life, about cyborgs that can live in space, the author created the story of Joe Shimamura (009) who was made into cyborg by an evil organization of arms traders called Black Ghost. With his eight fellow cyborgs, Joe fights evil using superhuman powers.
Original manuscripts of the Ribon no Kishi (Princess Knight) series
by Osamu Tezuka
Published in the monthly Nakayoshi magazine from January 1963 to October 1966
Tezuka Productions
©Tezuka Productions
This is a story about the loves and adventures of Princess Sapphire who was born with both boy’s and girl’s hearts. At the core of this work are Tezuka’s boyhood memories of being taken by his mother to see musical performances of Takarazuka Revue Company, an all-female musical theater troupe.
Original manuscripts of Ryujin-numa (Pond of Dragon God)
by Shotaro Ishinomori
Published in the 1961 extra summer-vacation edition of the Shojo Club magazine
Ishimori Productions
©ISHIMORI PRODUCTION INC.
A boy and his female cousin visit the Dragon God Festival where they find out about the evil conspiracy of the village mayor to wrongfully make money. When they are about to be killed by the mayor, the Dragon God in the shape of a beautiful girl appears and saves them. This work is regarded as a “textbook” for manga as Ishinomori used it to detail the technique of manga production in his book Manga-ka Nyumon (How to become a manga artist) (1965).
This is a science fiction hero manga set in the 21st century, featuring a boy robot with 100,000 horsepower named Atom. Through this work, the author emphasized the tragedy that can be caused by lack of communication between science and humans, and continued to send warnings to readers.