Buddha, Vol. 1: Kapilavastu

Buddha, Vol. 1: Kapilavastu

Osamu Tezukaâ€™s vaunted storytelling genius, consummate skill at visual expression, and warm humanity blossom fully in his eight-volume epic of Siddharthaâ€™s life and times. Tezuka evidences his profound grasp of the subject by contextualizing the Buddhaâ€™s ideas; the emphasis is on movement, action, emotion, and conflict as the prince Siddhartha runs away from home, travels across India, and questions Hindu practices such as ascetic self-mutilation and caste oppression. Rather than recommend resignation and impassivity, Tezukaâ€™s Buddha predicates enlightenment upon recognizing the interconnectedness of life, having compassion for the suffering, and ordering oneâ€™s life sensibly. Philosophical segments are threaded into interpersonal situations with ground-breaking visual dynamism by an artist who makes sure never to lose his readersâ€™ attention.

Tezuka himself was a humanist rather than a Buddhist, and his magnum opus is not an attempt at propaganda. Hermann Hesseâ€™s novel or Bertolucciâ€™s film is comparable in this regard; in fact, Tezukaâ€™s approach is slightly irreverent in that it incorporates something that Western commentators often eschew, namely, humor.

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