By Osamu Tezuka
Published by Viz/Cadence Books
Rating: unrated (likely 18+)

I can try to flower up and dance around the point all I want, but there’s really only one way to say it: Adolf is amazing. It’s one of the most powerful manga series I’ve ever read. As one of the last works by Osamu Tezuka, it takes a lifetime’s worth of themes and thousands of pages of experience and spins them into an exquisite story that is action-packed, thought-provoking, touching, and shocking in ways that not even the very best of his other work is.

It’s hard for me to talk about this series for fear of sounding disrespectful due to its subject matter, so I’m not going to comment too much on the history or its accuracy. It’s interesting as a look at Nazi Germany during World War II from a Japanese perspective. While Japan and Germany were allies during the war, the link and common ground between the two is rarely mentioned in the history material I’ve read since both countries had their own separate fronts and goals in mind. In Adolf, we see three characters: Sohei Toge, a Japanese reporter trying to uncover the secret of his brother’s mysterious murder in Berlin and the secret about Hitler he uncovered; Adolf Kaufmann, a half-German, half-Japanese boy raised in Japan and then sent to Germany to be a Hitler Youth; and Adolf Kamil, friend of Adolf Kaufmann and a Jewish boy living in Japan.

While the entire work is amazing, there are certain scenes that stuck with me for a long time after I read it. They are nothing short of harrowing. Toge getting his life torn apart by a relentless secret policeman for information that the Nazis want. Adolf Kaufmann being brainwashed as a member of the Hitler Youth and trying to resist, knowing that his friend Adolf Kamil is none of the things that the Nazis describe. Most scenes involving Adolf Kaufmann after he goes back to Germany, for that matter. The final scene between Adolf Hitler and Gestapo Officer Lampe. All of these are key plot points, but they are also powerful and disturbing in a way that I rarely see in a manga. Toge’s torture in particular was something that kept me awake at night. It was truly awful, and perfectly plotted and paced. The parts with Adolf Kaufmann are no less terrible, and seeing him brainwashed and slowly driven insane by the Nazi propaganda is hard to sit through, especially when he turns from a sweet boy into one of the more ruthless agents. Hitler himself is a character infrequently, and the way he is portrayed is also interesting, but I won’t spoil the surprise on that one.

The art is notable in Adolf, too. We see Tezuka’s art at its most realistic and gritty. There’s meticulous detail and attention paid to everything—a heaviness that his usual, more cartoony, style doesn’t possess—and the realism gives it an edge that even the art in MW didn’t seem to have. The contrast in style is most apparent in the appearance of Lamp and Hamegg, two of Tezuka’s Star System characters who have appeared in dozens of series since the 1950s. They are still recognizable, but both look more like real people here than they ever have before, which lends itself well to their incredibly villainous roles in this series. The art overall is maybe a bit less experimental than in MW or Ode to Kirihito, but there are still some very striking sequences. I was also quite taken with scenes in the first volume of the Berlin Olympics and the Nazi Party rallies that contain a great deal of detail and were likely informed by the films of Leni Riefenstahl.

The story itself stays on track and winds its way through the war and the lives of the Adolfs and Toge as well as the politics and history of the countries involved. Unlike most of the other work I’ve read by Tezuka, Adolf does not veer off on long tangents, but uses all its characters (who are rarely together) to give variation in the storytelling. There are separate plotlines for Toge and the two Adolfs, and eventually Adolf Kaufmann splits off to a third major storyline. The three converge at various points and in various ways (mostly through interaction with secondary characters), but it is mostly a character-driven work, with the war as a backdrop and an unfortunate catalyst in the lives of the characters.

The weakest part of the whole series is probably the epilogue, which takes place years after the story and is a final meeting of the two Adolfs. It feels out-of-place, but is also sad and very uncomfortable given the history between the two and the sad state of Adolf Kaufmann. The final scene does a good job of summarizing the theme of the whole series, though, at least from Toge’s perspective. The work begins and ends with Toge telling the story.

One other thing that’s worth mentioning is the excellent presentation the series recieved. Most would likely not guess that the five volumes are graphic novels: the trim size is different and the covers feature photography rather than art from the series. The adaptation is top notch and flows well, which is important here since stiff dialogue would likely lessen the impact of many scenes. Also, each volume features an interesting introductory essay from people connected to the work (mostly through VIZ), all of whom are still recognizable names: Frederik L. Schodt, Yuji Oniki, Matt Thorn, Annette Roman, and Gerard Jones. All are worth reading, and all do a far better job than I ever could of highlighting and discussing the themes of the work and covering a broad range of topics. Discussions include the fact that all the characters in this WWII story “don’t belong” racially in some way, that Tezuka’s usual themes of anti-discrimination and anti-ideology are still hanging around from the Astro Boy days, the word “seigi” and its untranslatable nuances as applied to the story, and an interesting comparison to Maus.

Admittedly, World War II has been the backdrop for many fine stories, and it’s hard not to make a powerful story with those themes if that’s what you’re setting out to do. But Adolf is haunting and certainly my favorite of Tezuka’s work; its mature art, story, and characters all come together to make even Ode to Kirihito and MW seem like child’s play as far as dark and disturbing go. Even given its relatively serious and grounded subject matter, there are scenes which can rival both of those titles for intensity and depravity. It’s also genuinely entertaining without being too dry and heavy-handed (well, mostly). It’s unfortunate that the series is out of print and expensive, because it strikes me as one of the occasional titles that would appeal to an extremely broad range of readers, outside manga and even comics. If you can find it, I highly recommend it.

All five volumes of Adolf are available now.