MW

Joseph Luster November 15, 2007

If you’ve been following Vertical’s deluxe releases of Osamu Tezuka’s work, then you already know that there are many, many different sides to the prolific creator, most of which are far separated from the cutesy and fun trappings of titles like Astro Boy. Heck, even Viz Media’s volumes of Phoenix, known for being Tezuka’s incomplete life work, serve as a good introduction to his deep and intertwining style of sequential art.

With that in mind, consider Buddha, Ode to Kirihito and the like as narrative training wheels for Vertical’s latest release, 1976’s thriller MW, originally serialized in Big Comic magazine. MW follows two characters primarily, the tortured priest Father Garai and the slender, effeminate brother of a kabuki star, Michio Yuki. Though they couldn’t be any different from one another, their fates are intertwined as a result of a devastating incident they survived on a remote island near Okinawa.

Yuki a young frightened boy, Garai a headstrong member in a tough gang: they met on this island and managed to survive a deadly leakage of a gas called MW. With everyone else on the island dead they turn to each other, and that bond isn’t easily broken, even when Yuki’s slight exposure to the gas ends up affecting his very sense of right and wrong. As they grow up and Garai is a respectable member of the church, he has to deal with Yuki’s sinister confessions as he murders people indiscriminately. This isn’t easy when you’re in bed with the enemy, either.

MW is an incredibly complex story that unfolds carefully over nearly 600 pages, all of which are shining examples of a master at the height of his craft. It’s a testament to Tezuka’s storytelling ability that, even with everything that’s going on, all of the twists and turns, there’s never a snag along the way; never a confounding plot point that trips up the reader. In some ways, it’s very much a slow burn, but at the same time it’s difficult to think of a moment of the story that seems ill paced or stretched too far.

While, for the most part, the art in this book is very detailed and about as realistic as you would expect from Tezuka’s style, MW frequently ventures into the surreal, which is understandable given its provocative subject matter. Characters, especially the two leads, occasionally twist into abstract representations of themselves, and the composition of the panels sometimes gives in to the weight of the story, boosting the atmosphere of many of the darker moments. Even with all of this intensity afoot, MW does manage to inject one or two doses of comic relief. That’s no small feat here, and you certainly shouldn’t expect to see it too often.

Don’t let the grim premise get you down, though. MW is a treat to dig through from start to finish, and one of the most outstanding of Tezuka’s graphic novels released stateside thus far. It’s really admirable that, considering all of the bold concepts introduced throughout, Tezuka doesn’t tiptoe around any of them, choosing to bring them to the forefront and explore them intimately. Vertical traps all of this lovingly in the confines of another deluxe hardcover edition filled to the brim with quality, earning every dollar it charges, so make sure to pick this up and support their marvelous work.

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