74 BUDDHA
737; Brubaker, Ed. “About Ed Brubaker.” Ed Brubaker.com ( June 27, 2009), http://
http://www.edbrubaker.com; Rahner, Mark. “Brubaker’s Noir World.” Seattle Times (October 4,
2006), http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2003287323_brubak
er04.html.
Craig Crowder
BUDDHA. Buddha is a Japanese graphic novel fi rst published in a shonen magazine mar-
keted for male high-school students. Spanning between 1974 and 1984, Buddha was
serialized in the magazine Kibo-no-tomo , which later changed to Shonen World and
then to Comic Tom. Th e English version, specially packaged by designer Chip Kidd,
was published in an eight-volume set between 2003 and 2005 by Vertical Publish-
ing, New York. Volumes 1 ( Kapilavastu ) and 2 ( Th e Four Encounters ) won the 2004
Eisner Award for Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material, volumes 3 ( Devadatta ) and 4
( Th e Forest Of Uruvela ) won the same prize the next year, and volumes 5–8 ( Deer Park ,
Ananda , Prince Ajatasattu , Jetavana ) were nominated in the Best Archival Collection/
Project category in 2006.
About 3,800 pages long, Buddha was penned by the “God of Manga ,” Osamu
Tezuka , during the mature period of his career. Lore, legends, commonly accepted key
events, and Buddhist scriptural texts taken from the Pali Canon are faithfully reported
in a colossal account of the life of Buddha (i.e., the Enlightened One) most of whose
historical existence remains unknown.
Born Prince Siddhartha, Buddha was presaged a great destiny. Bowing to pressure,
he married a princess and fathered a son. He was shielded at all times from all unpleas-
ant aspects of reality, knowing only of luxurious earthly pleasures that never succeeded
in distracting him from pondering and questioning the cause of suff ering and death.
One day, he chanced across a Brahman who encouraged him to explore the four gates
of a fort, symbolically standing for the four primary directions, whereupon he saw four
determining signs of old age, disease, death, and a monk. Finally aware of the miserable
reality of living, Siddhartha abandoned his worldly life as a prince, husband and father,
and became a wandering monk in search of an answer to the cause of human suff er-
ing. After seven years of ascetic trial, Siddhartha’s continual questioning of the Hindu
extreme practice of self-mutilation led him to abandoning the physical ordeal which
did not end suff ering. He went on meditating and pondering on the meaning of life for
many more years until he was awakened to the law of cause and eff ect. Becoming a true
Buddha, he started to teach his discoveries to animals and people of all castes alike until
he died at the age of 80.
In this biographical frame and socio-historical background, Tezuka inserts a good
number of stock characters, both true and fi ctional, whose intricate involvements sat-
isfy the entertainment need of the shonen readership. True to his “star system,” Tezuka
recasts some of his well-known characters in secondary roles. Saruta, a sturdy man
with a huge spotted nose, who appears in every story, is now Kassapa, leader of a fi re-
worshipping sect; Duke Red, who fi rst appeared in Metropolis , plays the role of Prince
