MoN Takanawa: The Museum of Narratives announced that Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix (Hi no Tori) manga is inspiring a live manga performance titled Mangalogue: Hi no Tori that will run from April 22-May 16 at the museum’s Box1000 theaters. The performance is part of the museum’s new “Mangalogue” series, which projects the manga onto a large screen, combined with immersive sound, light, technology, and live narration.
Image via MoN Takanawa
© East Japan Railway Foundation for Cultural Innovation
MoN Takanawa opens on March 28 in Takanawa Gateway City in Tokyo. The performance commemorates the museum’s opening, and it focuses on Hi no Tori: Mirai-hen (Phoenix: Future Arc), the second part of the Phoenix series.
Image via MoN Takanawa
© East Japan Railway Foundation for Cultural Innovation
Tezuka wrote Phoenix’s “Future” arc between December 1967 and September 1968. The official Osamu Tezuka website describes the second part:
Set in A.D. 3404, the earth is dying, and human beings inhabit a city-state built deep under the ground. The authorities search for Yamanobe Masato, Class 2 space warrior of Megalopolis Yamato. They suspect him of hiding Tamami, a girl transformed into a human from her original form as the outer space creature Moopie.
Masato and Tamami escape over deserted land to flee from their country. Guided by the Phoenix, they arrive at Dr. Saruta’s dome. Here, Dr. Saruta conducts research on artificial life with the aim of bringing extinct creatures back.
Meanwhile, the final war of the human race begins in the underground city, and humans become extinct.
The manga recently inspired a stage play that ran at Theatre West at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theater in July 2024. The play was based on the manga’s “Karma” arc (“Hō-ō-hen,” or literally “Firebird Arc”)
Image via Amazon
© Osamu Tezuka
Tezuka began the original Phoenix “Dawn” arc in Manga Shonen from 1954-55, but it remains unfinished due to the magazine’s suspension of publication. Three more chapters (Egypt, Greece, and Rome) appeared in the Shojo Club magazine in 1956, but also left the story unfinished. Tezuka later restarted “Dawn” with some changes in the debut issue of COM magazine in 1967. This manga served as a prologue for the long-running multi-part series.
Tezuka continued to serialize new arcs for the manga until the 12th part, “Sun,” which ended in 1988, the year before his death. The stories presented in the Phoenix manga span multiple eras, past and future.
Viz Media published the manga in North America.
The four-episode Phoenix: Eden17 anime based on the manga debuted worldwide on Disney+ in September 2023. The anime’s Japanese title is Hi no Tori: Eden no Sora (literally, Phoenix: Eden’s Space). The anime also got a film version in November 2023 titled Phoenix: Reminiscence of Flower (Hi no Tori: Eden no Hana, literally “Eden’s Flower”). The film features a different ending from the Phoenix: Eden17 anime. The anime is based on the “Nostalgia” arc of the original manga.
The manga also inspired a series of anime film and OVA adaptations from 1978 to 1987, each adapting a different story in the manga. The manga inspired a 2004 television anime.
Sources: MoN Takanawa, Comic Natalie
