MANGAMANGA

STORY

One night, a wounded tiger drifts to a small island where an old woman lives with her granddaughter, Aino, and her grandson, Hajimu, in a straw-roofed hut. The tiger has swum across the Pacific from India, following her cub, which was captured by a hunter working for a Japanese lawmaker named Katsu. Katsu plans to exploit the tiger as a mascot for his election campaign.

Tragically, the tiger soon dies. An old man named Yajirobe, who can understand cat language, reveals that the tiger left a will asking for her body to be buried somewhere on the island. Aino and Hajimu honor her wish and bury her under a pear tree. Shortly after, something miraculous happens: a tiger-like pattern appears on the surface of the pear tree, and anyone who eats its fruit gains the ability to understand animal languages.

Together, Aino and Hajimu, along with the local cats and dogs, manage to retrieve the tiger cub from the lawmaker and bring him back to the island. The cub, named Kuroboshi by the leader of the local cats, grows up strong and healthy.

DESCRIPTIONS

1974/01/06-12/29 Serialized in Akahata Sunday Edition (The Central Committee of the Japanese Communist Party)

This is a fantasy story in which the island's people and animals unite to fight against an evil lawmaker. In the afterward, Tezuka mentions that he originally intended to create a folk tale in tribute to the Year of the Tiger, 1974. However, he ultimately transformed it into a caricature of a Japanese prime minister of that time who aimed to remodel the Japanese Archipelago. Tezuka expressed his thoughts on this endeavor, stating, “People may have no choice but to follow the movement, but I wonder if there is any reason for wildlife to do so.”


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