Adolf: Difference between revisions

An epic story of war, friendship and betrayal from [[Osamu Tezuka|the God of Manga himself]]. Spanning approximately half a century, from the Berlin Olympics to the then-present of [[The Eighties]], focusing primarily on the years leading up to [[World War Two]], ''Adolf'' is [[Genre Busting|by turns a]] [[Coming of Age Story]], [[Spy Fiction]], Romance & a fairly well-done [[Author Tract]] about the evils of war and racism.

 

 

What's also interesting is that unlike most WWII stories you're probably familiar with, it gives an intimate look into the daily lives of people in the Axis Powers. Tezuka himself lived through the war and many of the later chapters were based on his own experiences with dodging American incendiaries as a lad.

* [[Greedy Jew]]: While most of the Jewish characters are decent people, Elisa's father plays the part of the greedy, scheming old Yid to the hilt. The man sells out his own people by having business dealings with Nazi-affiliated companies, encourages his daughter to get into a relationship with a psychotic Hitler Youth she doesn't even like because a party member marrying into the family would give him even more connections & eventually gets himself and most of his family killed because he didn't want to leave his cash behind when he fled the country.

* [[Groin Attack]]: How Toge usually deals with Akabane.

* [[I Will Wait for You]]

* [[Ineffectual Loner]]: Toge insists on handling the case himself and so refuses to give the information to any of the spies, who would perhaps make it, you know, really work. Highlighted by the fact that later {{spoiler|he does decide to hand it over to a Soviet spy network anyway - but all too late.}}

* [[Karma Houdini]]: Lampe just walks away after carrying out his final mission. Considering where he was, he was probably caught by the Allies soon after, [[Tethercat Principle|but who knows...]]

* [[Large Ham]]: Hitler, of course. Tezuka often draws his facial expressions and body language in a rubbery, cartoonishly exaggerated manner to satirize his bombastic public speaking style.

* [[MacGuffin]]: Hitler's birth certificate and the Wagner statue it was hidden in. They never really explain how it wound up in there in the first place.

* [[Mighty Whitey]]: Adolf Kaufman fulfills this trope on many levels. He rises quickly through the SS despite being [[But Not Too Foreign|Half-Japanese]]. Tezuka attempts to justify this by having Hitler take a personal interest in him as a way of trying to learn about Japan from him so he can understand his Japanese allies better. After the war, he takes refuge with a group of Palestinian fighters and ends up becoming one of their top men, though this does make a bit of sense considering his extensive military training. The fact that the man is a ''Nazi'' may or may not make this a very twisted, circuitous [[Lampshade Hanging]]...

 

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[[Category:Manga of the 1980s]]