Kirihito

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Kirihito ( き り ひ と 讃 歌 , Kirihito Sanka , German about hymn to Kirihito ) is a manga of the Japanese mangaka Osamu Tezuka from 1970 and 1971.

action

The two young Japanese doctors Kirihito Osanai and Urabe work for Professor Tatsugaura in the M University Hospital in Tokyo.

Incurable Monmo Disease, which only occurs in Inugamisawa village, turns people into dog-like beings. First her face, then the rest of the body. The disease also leads to a greed for raw meat until the sick finally die of lung failure after a few months. Kirihito Osanai is being sent to the town for a month to investigate how the people get sick. In the village he meets the girl Tazu and treats her father. Osanai wants to go to the next town by bike to buy medicine. On the way there he is attacked by a villager on a suspension bridge. Osanai survives the assassination attempt and kills his attacker. In order not to be lynched, Osanai marries the girl Tazu and thus becomes a recognized member of the community. However, Osanai also fell ill with Monmo disease a few days later. He has now been in the village for three months.

When Osanai's former fiancé Izumi investigates, she discovers that he has disappeared from all registers. Professor Tatsugaura arranged this because he saw Osanai as a competitor for the post of president of the hospital. He wants to prove that Monmo disease is caused by a virus.

At the same time, Urabe is sent to South Africa to present Monmo disease at an international medical congress. There he learned that similar cases also occurred in a mine on the upper reaches of the Limpopo in Rhodesia. Urabe also learns that a nun has visited the infected. The nun Helen Freeze also falls ill with mono-disease. In order to keep the secret that only colored people are affected by the disease, the attending doctor shoots Helen and Urabe down. Both of them can escape seriously injured and are treated by a dark-skinned doctor.

Osanai finds out that the groundwater in Inugamisawa is responsible for the disease. He informs the mayor about his find and sets off with his wife Tazu on the trip back to Tokyo. When she goes to fetch water for Osanai, Tazu is murdered. Osanai takes the body to the next village and asks for a proper burial. On the same evening he quarters in a hotel. Osanai was knocked unconscious and kidnapped while walking at night. He is sent to the rich Taiwanese Mr. Wan sold. There he is supposed to appear as a member of a freak show for amusement. A little later Osanai arrives at the palatial property of Mr. Wan in Taipei. In Mr. Wan's palace has an orgy every day. Osanai is supposed to sleep with a dog to entertain the guests, but refuses. He is beaten half to death for this. After a bomb attack on the palace, he and his girlfriend Lihua escape. Both make their way to Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan. There they reach the airport and want to take the plane to Amsterdam, but the plane is hijacked and flies to Syria.

A short time later, Mr. Wan fell ill with Monmo’s disease, the reason for this being a medicinal drink made with groundwater from Inugamisawa. For treatment, Mr. Wan flew to Tokyo and treated there by Professor Tatsugaura. After a few days, Mr. Wan.

At the same time, Urabe and Helen reach Japan. Helen can show that the disease is not caused by a virus, but by contaminated water. Osanai arrives in Japan on the day of the hospital presidential election, but Tatsugaura becomes president despite all of this. But Tatsugaura is infected by an unfortunate coincidence with Monmo disease by giving him the medicinal drink from Mr. Wan is given to drink. Tatsugaura refuses any treatment that would refute his virus theory. So he dies soon after and Osanai returns to Syria.

Style and Influences

The plot of the manga strongly reminds Natsu Onoda Power of the novels by Yamazaki Toyoko , as it addresses the interplay of power and ethics. Still, Tezuka denied ties to Toyoko. The style of the manga refers to early Russian films, such as the frequent use of religious symbols. Natsu Onada refers this particularly to the armored cruiser Potemkin , which did not appear in Japan until the 1960s.

publication

The manga was first published in April 1970 to December 1971 in the magazine Big Comic of the publishing house Shogakukan . The manga was published as a one-volume complete edition by Vertical in North America, as well as in several volumes by Akata / Delcourt in France and Otakuland in Spain. Carlsen Comics has published three volumes of the series in German since October 2009.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Natsu Onada Power: God of Comics - Osamu Tezuka p. 145 f. University Press of Mississippi.