Apollo's Song: New Omnibus Edition

Great book read it years ago, would highly recommend to anyone that is a fan of Osamu Texuka.

A boy grows up with his prostitude mother. The mother does'nt love him. So he turns out to be sadistic, angry young man. After killing some animals he gets psyciatric treatment. During dreams, hypnosis, time travell and marathon training he learns the true meaning of love. The story is to pretensious and melodramatic -it nevers becomes interesting. So far this is the worst book I've read by Tezuka.

If purchased with the notion that the "New Omnibus Edition" was going to be an unflipped release containing the previously omitted "Rubbish Poetry" then one will find himself disappointed.As pictured, barring the cover and the absence of the flaps found in the previous Omnibus edition, it is exactly the same release as before on cheaper paper quality.Very unfortunate. Do be mindful in pre-ordering the upcoming "New Edition" for "Ode to Kirihito"

SOME EARLY, BUT NOT LATER SPOILERS:I must agree with Matthew Kirschenblatt--it's very good, but not Tezukas's best. The transition between episodes is not always smooth, nor are all episodes of equally high quality. I doubt that the translation is bad; Tezuka is capable of fantastic drawing--people's faces, architecture, nature, action--but his work is not uniformly great, and it isn't uniformly great in this manga.After a hilarious, irreveverent, cynical prologue about human reproduction, we get into the story of Shogo Chikaishi, whose home life, from birth till 15, when the actual story starts, is a complete disaster: his mother has little time nor love to waste on him, being involved with a neverendieg series of lovers, all of whom she insists Shogo call "Papa." From as far back as he can remember, Shogo knows none of them are. One time, when Shogo spies on his mother and one of his "Papas" behind his mother's closed bedroom door, she beats him for it, and he says "Why did you have me anyway? I wish I'd never been born." His mother admits it was probably a mistake, and adds, "Well, that's what happns when men and women sleep together."Something clicks in his mind, and he becomes a love-hater, growing physically sick and enraged when he sees people or animals about to make love. He kills many animals (fortunately no people), and through the police, arrives in a mental hopital, where a psychiatrist sets about curing his disease with electro-shock therapy. In his shock-induced dreams, he meets the Goddess of Love, who sentences him to wander endlessly, from life to life, always falling in love with the same girl, in different forms, but never being able to consummate this loove, because the death of one or the other of them intervenes. This is what creates the series of stories, some of which are touching, and some rather funny (Shogo, being an otherwise normal 15-year-old, has an amusing sense of humor himself). He learns to understand not only his own suffering, but that of others as well.The sentence seems a bit stiff to me: you'd think the Goddes of Love would take his sad background into consideration!It's a good read, and the prologue is priceless.

This is an excellent Manga. Furthermore, I think it has a good chance to appeal to readers who enjoy more western graphic novels but struggle with esoteric themes found in a lot of Manga. There is something very literary about this story that contrasts with much of the other manga Ive been exposed to. File with "Fun House," "American Born Chinese" and other more personal story arcs before lumping it with "Battle Royale" or "Lone Wolf and Cub." Despite this charactization, Apollo's Song is not a biography by any means (Im getting sort of sick of autobiographical comics)."Apollo" is basically a collection of several smaller stories that fit within a larger framework, and it holds together well both ways. It is a strong title and certainly one of the best comics of 2007 (at least here in the US, where it is finally appearing!). I think readers of mature graphic novels will be quite happy with this lengthy read.