Nextworld 1

Woah! The story in this one was way cooler than I expected! I thought I would like this one the least in the sci-fi Tezuka books, but it’s way better than the other two.

But let me talk about the characters for awhile, since I have two separate entries to cover this series. The one cool thing about reading these Dark Horse books, especially Astro Boy, is that I got introduced to Tezuka’s regular cast of characters. I’d only ever read Phoenix before, and while that does feature some reoccurring characters like Saruta, it doesn’t have the regulars in it (though I’m told Lamp is in one of the first volumes). Astro Boy is probably the best example, because everyone appears in it over and over again for the entire run of the series, then over and over again in everything else Tezuka wrote before and after Astro Boy. Acetylene Lamp is my favorite of these characters. He’s a villain that’s not quite as soft as Duke Red, nor quite as bumbling as Hamegg. As a result, he’s slimy and hardcore, and meets a bitter, frightening end a lot of times as a just dessert for his actions. The three Tezuka scenes that I can think of that terrify me the most all involve Lamp, and the worst was in Lost World.

Lamp is in Nextworld, but only as a bum at first. He eventually works his way up in the world, eventually corrupting the kind-hearted Rock for good and causing the catalyst at the end of the story. He’s the eventual true bad guy, and he’s driven only by money. Anyway. This story’s about nuclear testing that creates a race of super beings that can rule over mankind. For some reason (perhaps because they’re actually aliens, I don’t know), these super-beings have their own spaceships, and eventually the story becomes about evacuating the planet before a deadly space cloud engulfs it and kills all life. Things like this are what makes Tezuka great, really.

These super-beings look like faeries. A scientist (one of the same ones from Metropolis) finds them on an island where nuclear testing has been going on. Higeoyaji finds him, and as the scientist is explaining why he has imprisoned this tiny faerie yelling for help, it breaks free and transports Higeoyaji to a sort of gulag.  I don’t know why.

The country conducting the nuclear testing is called Uran, and is headed by Duke Red. Eventually, they go to war with the country of Star, headed by Notarlin. This is largely because Notarlin hates Duke Red a lot. Rock is also a main character, a kind-hearted newspaper boy who is dating Notarlin’s daughter. He is eventually corrupted into the usual somewhat deranged evil Rock when he is thrown into the Uran gulag after being caught spying in a giant bird costume (well, he was initially caught in the costume… he got busted later under more normal circumstances). The gulag is a factory where Uran is making its weapons, and Rock is held there with Higeoyaji and Duke Red’s son. Everyone eventually escapes, which is where we leave the first volume.

Oh, and the escape? Higeoyaji is by himself, and he winds up in with some religious zealots headed by Lawton. Everyone else meets up with Kenichi and is held by the faeries. Just so you know.

While it sounds like it’s got just as many characters and manic details as Metropolis, it all comes together much easier and more simply. The plot is also much more awesome and more grand in scale, and we get lots of random action and science to keep things interesting. Let’s see where volume two takes us.