Little Black-Eared One
STORY
One very cold day in midwinter, a baby fox was born in a fox burrow, and was named Kuromimi-chan. His parents worried about whether they would be able to raise their child in the middle of winter. To their dismay, the mother fox could feed her baby because of malnutrition. Then the father fox remembered that his human friend Tecchan had come back to the charcoal burner's hut. They used to play together in their childhood. "I'm sure Tecchan would give us some food," said the father fox, and headed for the charcoal burner's hut. There, he found Tecchan to be a fully grown man, but he also saw a sporting gun...
DESCRIPTIONS
Tezuka Osamu illustrates with pathos and humor, the harsh environment in which animals have to survive, especially during the cold winter. This is an anecdote about Tecchan and the father fox, who have not seen each other for ten years. The scenes in which the mother fox kills a rabbit for her baby, and Kuromimi-chan starts to sob saying that his mother looked very scary when she killed the rabbit, make us realize with a shock nature's cruelty. Tezuka Osamu shows us these scenes in a casual manner, but we can perceive his message; we should not turn our children's eyes from the reality that animals live in a world "where humans also exist", and "the natural world where creatures are in a constant battle against each other for survival". Throughout his life, Tezuka Osamu was against hypocrisy, a sugar-coated reality in the name of fantasy. "Face up to harsh reality, then talk about dreams." This was his attitude as a writer, and it is clearly manifested in this short illustrated story.
