MANGAMANGA

STORY

This is the first part of Tezuka Osamu's lifework "The Phoenix" to appear after switching publications from "COM" to "Manga Shonen."
The story line of this chapter begins with the death of George in an accident shortly after he and his lover Romi begin to live a new life by themselves on the desert Planet Eden 71.
Romi was pregnant with George's baby at that time.
Having decided to protect the planet and her child by herself, she repeatedly shuns the world to try to have descendents with George's child. She tried many times but could only have boys. After isolating herself, she wakes up to find an affluent town named Eden.
Phoenix had let an amorphous cosmic creature named Moopie have children with the Romi's descendents. Romi becomes the queen of Eden, but gradually begins to long for earth.
One day, an Eden boy named Com comes upon a mysterious spaceship made of rock in the prohibited deep mountains. Together with Romi, Com departs for the earth of his ancestors that he has never seen.

DESCRIPTIONS

Phoenix: Nostalgia
September 1976 to March 1978
Appeared serially in "Manga Shonen" (Asahi Sonorama)

After serialization was suspended twice, seven episodes, from "Dawn" through "A Robe of Feathers" appeared in the magazine "COM." "The Phoenix" series was thus completed once. But when serialization of the eight episodes, "Nostalgia," began, "COM" drastically changed its editorial policy, and the series was re-launched as "COM Comics."
Due to these circumstances, the publication of the chapter "Nostalgia" appeared twice: in the December 1971 issue of "COM" and the January 1972 issue of "COM Comics." The publication of "Phoenix" was then suspended once again.
Four years and a half later, in September 1976, the new chapter "Nostalgia" appeared in the newly published monthly boys comic magazine "Manga Shonen," published by Asahi Sonorama for its inaugural issue.
Although the chapter "Nostalgia" in the COM version picks up at the end of the final scene of Part 7 "(A Robe of Feathers"), because the chapter could no longer be republished due to a particular set of circumstances (see the commentary to "A Robe of Feathers"), the chapter "Nostalgia" in the "Manga Shonen" version was totally revamped as a separate story. The content of the "COM" version was thus significantly altered.
In this work, the amorphous creature "Moopie," who appeared in the chapter "The Future" and space ship pilot Makimura, who appeared in the chapter "The Space", play important roles.

CATEGORY
Science Fiction

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