Shin Takarajima (manga)
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| Shin Takarajima | |
 | |
| 新宝島 | |
|---|---|
| Manga | |
| Written by | Sakai Shichima |
| Illustrated by | Osamu Tezuka |
| Published by | Ikuei Shuppan |
| English publisher | Digital Manga Guild |
| Published | January 1947 |
"Shin Takarajima" (Japanese: 新宝島; pronounced [ɕintakaɾadʑima] ⓘ, "New Treasure Island") is a Japanese one-shot manga published by Ikuei Shuppan in January 1947.[1] It was written by Sakai Shichima, and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka.
It is Tezuka's debut full-length work, and is considered to be the starting point of postwar Japanese manga.
Despite the title of the manga, it is not an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island novel, but it does borrow many themes from the novel and other adventure novels such as Tarzan and Robinson Crusoe. Historian Ryan Holmberg has also noted visual and thematic parallels between the work and the 1942 Disney comic Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold.[2]
A revision of the manga was made by Tezuka in 1984, as part of Kodansha's Osamu Tezuka Complete Manga Works series, featuring 250 redrawn pages compared to the original 190 pages, a slightly different plot, and a brand new ending that features a plot twist. Shin Takarajima was published in English digitally by Digital Manga Guild in December 2019.[3]
A boy named Pete found a treasure island map left by his late father and decided to search for the treasure island alongside a ship captain and a stray dog. Along the way, the group got attacked by a band of pirates led by a man named Boar who demands the map, got stranded in the sea after a storm ambushed their ship, got captured by a cannibal tribe in the treasure island, and met with a Tarzan-like character named Baron who befriends the animals on the treasure island and guards the hidden treasure. In the end, the group managed to outrace the pirates and found the treasure with the help of Baron and managed to escape the treasure island after the captain's crew found them, while the pirates who followed the map got led into a trap. Pete then planned to use the treasure they founded to build a large zoo on the treasure island for children all around the world to visit.
The 1984 revision has the plot differs slightly from the original. With the 1984 version revealed the plot to be only a dream created by the stray dog, who is actually a fairy, to satisfy Pete's fantasy during his travel to the island, and that the treasures on the island no longer exists as of Pete's travel.[4]
Characters
Tezuka has a method called the star system in which he would reuse the same characters in multiple different stories, inspired by Hollywood actors. Many characters that first appeared in this manga would later reappear in Tezuka's other works.
- Pete
- A brave, kind, and adventurous young boy. He is modeled after the cartoon character Scrappy. He would later reappear in some of Tezuka's major works such as Astro Boy and Black Jack under the name Ken'ichi.
- Dog
- A stray dog that Pete found during his travel to the treasure island. In the 1984 revision, the dog is revealed to be a fairy named Pan.
- Captain
- An energetic middle old man who is friends with Pete's late father. He also appeared in the manga Lost World under the name Butamo Makeru, and would later appear in Tezuka's other works such as Dr. Mars and Metropolis. His role as a partner of Pete would later be replaced by Shunsaku Ban.
- Boar
- A stubborn leader of a ban of pirates. He is crippled due to his backstory of fighting a shark. He is modeled after the Disney character Pete. He would later reappear in Tezuka's other works such as The Mysterious Underground Men and Next World under the name Buku Bukk.