Tezuka's Buddha Vol 1 Review

I just finished reading Battle Angel Altia just before diving into this work, and can there be a bigger difference between these works? Altia is a scifi action series centered on the battles of a cyborg warrior, and Buddha is, well, a retelling of the story of Buddha. Visually these to pieces are wildly different, as Tezuka’s signature style, which graced my childhood in the form of the original Astro Boy, is on display in Buddha. Tezuka’s style is more cartoony, with anatomy sometimes getting a bit lost, the characters are not nearly as crazy detailed as Battle Angel’s but they are probably more enduring for it. I have never heard the story of Buddha before, I know the general idea, but the specifics have never been known to me, but if I never knew that this was the story that Buddhism is based on, retold, I would have enjoyed the ride all the same. The characters in Buddha, while being these figures from this religion, stayed human and appealing, I was able to connect with these characters because they’re flawed, not idealized characters. I really enjoyed the story; the only thing that threw me was how quickly Tatta seemed to get past his families deaths. Buddha does have the classic anime “overacting” going on, though in this time, and still today, American comics were doing much the same, but mostly only in the funnies these days. Overall this was a brilliant piece, and now that I really examine Tezuka’s work in context, I can see the huge affect he had on every anime or manga that followed him, even my personal favorite, Mobile Suit Gundam was very Tezuka like at its inception in the late 70s.