Adolf 5
September 11, 2007
Reading the last volume of this series was such an experience that it made me physically ill, and I had to take 24 hours to recover. This may actually be true.
The horrible things that Adolf Kaufmann gets up to are… quite horrible, really. He commits just about every type of atrocity you can think of, including rape, murder, torture, etc. He’s such a horrible guy now, and its hard to watch these things going on in his hometown. Even his mom doesn’t want him anymore. He really is… well, what the story is about. I know that sounds silly, but the changes in him are just incredible, and having this character is what makes Adolf so powerful.
The bombings in Japan were hard to sit through, too. They… did a lot of damage.
The final showdown is not as I would have imagined it. It felt a little less epic than I thought it would, and I was kind of on unfamiliar ground with the PLO, so I felt a bit disoriented reading the actual conclusion to the story.
I’m glad Toge wound up being the last featured character. And, despite the fact that it was bad for Toge, I’m glad we got one more round with insane Hamegg as well.
This was a fantastic series. My slight dislike of the ending aside, nearly everything about it was almost perfectly executed. I believe it was in Annette Roman’s essay where it mentioned the story revolved around a somewhat contrived plot device (a secret about Hitler being 1/4 Jewish is what Toge fights for the entire time), and that’s probably one of the only things that bothered me about it. As well-done as everything else was, it seems like there could be a better secret the Nazis are going after… though personal information about Hitler is kind of fitting since he’s depicted as quite insane later in the series.
But really, my favorite part of this volume is a spoiler, so don’t read any farther down than this if you don’t want to be spoiled.
spoiler…
spoiler…
spoiler…
Lamp shot Hilter in the face. Thank you, Osamu Tezuka.
September 12, 2007 at 3:05 am
hey you know several years ago when i was in highschool i was tight with the librarian. She would order books that i suggested. However, the first volume of this series she ordered on her own. I read it and realized it was not a complete story. i don’t think she realized she had ordered a manga either. however i think i got up to volume 3 then gave up. I even got my dad to read it because he’s obsessed with WWII. but i’m not even kind of a fan of Tezuka. however this series(or what i read of it) was intriguing. however adolf has never been a real subject of interest for me so after it got too distrubing for me and it went it way too many directions than i was suspecting i quit. It wasn’t bad..but i was expecting an account of the real hitler..I’m not trying to knock the book. i’m only really posting this cuz i was going to say “omg i thought i was the only person in the world who had discovered this manga”. i was surprised to see it on here. well. later!
September 13, 2007 at 12:11 pm
[...] checks out vol. 1 of Gon. Connie is busy at Slightly Biased Manga, where she gives her take on vol. 5 of Adolf, vol. 2 of Golgo 13, Fake Fur, and vol. 1 of Walkin’ Butterfly. Ed Park reviews Apollo’s [...]
September 14, 2007 at 4:06 am
Yeah, it took me a long time to go back and read this series. It was in the Viz catalogs when I first started reading manga (I think they even had hardcover editions), and they were promoting it as a series by the “God of Manga,” but neither Black Jack nor Adolf interested me much at the time. I’m glad I went back for it though, I enjoyed it quite a bit.
August 6, 2008 at 5:58 am
One thing about this series is each Volume was better then the last. Thus it follows this was my favorite volume. I don’t mean to spoil any thing but the scene where Kaufmann finally finds what he is looking for is one of the greatest scenes in fiction ever. It was simultaneously intense, poetic, tragic and effective in conveying its warning about blind faith. I have gone back to read just that scene multiple times after finishing the series.
August 12, 2008 at 4:01 am
I’ve been a manga reader before the Tokyopop years and I just now finished Adolf. I’ve bumped into Adolf several times at bookstores, used bookstores, and libraries, but I never thought to try the series out. I can’t remember if I even gave the series a quick flip through. Maybe seeing Hitler on the cover with the title Adolf put me off, or just the fact that it was written by the manga god, Osamu Tezuka, made it seem intimidating. I can’t say for sure why, but I really feel like an idiot for not reading this amazing story earlier.
Couple more things I want to mention:
- Having the story end in Lebanon/Israel was shocking and brilliant. I’ve never heard of a story that has both the Holocaust and Middle East problem, with a neutral tone, and was completely unprepared for that (despite the cover showing a guy wearing middle eastern clothes). While I’m glad he added that bit of historical irony, it made no sense that a Nazi would be walking around Lebanon.
- Seeing Kamil swapping roles with Kaufman and turning into a killer was a tough read.
- Interesting to see you mention Naoki Urasawa because I noticed similarities as well.
- On Tezuka’s official site, they mention Tezuka rewriting the ending.
What a loss to manga readers that Adolf is now out of print.