Adolf 2

Osamu Tezuka – Viz – 1996 – 5 volumes

This volume focuses mainly on the documents that Toge, the main character, is trying to protect. Hamegg (called Akabane in this series, but I like to think of breakfast as I talk about him) is the head of the secret police in Japan, and he basically spends all volume following him around, destroying his life, until Toge agrees to hand over the documents. Hamegg ensures that Toge can’t do things like hold a job for more than a day or find a roof to sleep under. Eventually Toge winds up a bum. Poor Toge.

The German/Japanese Adolf is mentioned briefly, and there are a couple chapters about him going through Nazi school. He seems to like being a Nazi, but can’t reconcile their vision of the Jewish with his friend Adolf from Japan. There’s a pretty powerful scene where Jewish Adolf sits behind him as he reads Mein Kampf and struggles with the comparison of his best friend to what is written.

Hitler meets German/Japanese Adolf and pins a medal to his chest. That was one of the weirder, more surreal scenes in the volume. Hitler as a character in a manga who addresses fictional characters is probably what makes it weird. It’s hard for me to see Hitler in any type of fictitious context, but he works as a background character in this series since everything he’s done so far other than this meeting has been, as far as I can tell, historically accurate.

But the single best scene in this volume, and probably in the series, is when Toge is fighting Hamegg in a dump in one of their last fights. The phrase “I SAID EAT THE GODDAMN TRASH!” is used in one of the most dramatic and awesome confrontations ever. Eventually, the dump is torched and the two still fight. Lots of awesome things happen, and the end of the fight is very satisfying.

Hamegg’s ultimate end is also one of the most astonishing things EVER. This was probably the last major appearance of Hamegg in a Tezuka work. Here, he’s basically just as horribly evil as Lamp is, and kind of worse in a lot of ways. He uses more traditional strongarm methods of abuse than Lamp’s Nazi Torture, but he still ruins Toge’s life on a grand scale. What eventually happens to him is pretty awful, but as you’re sitting there watching his final scene play out you can’t help but think that it’s a fitting end for a dirty, crooked, robot-abusing ringmaster. Not even Lamp gets as good a final scene as Hamegg.

But… how does his hair grow in straight? It’s… he’s… he’s the only one with curly hair, you see. It’s curly. Even in this series. You can see it when he takes his hat off or gets kicked in the balls. It’s what makes him seedy.