Manga like Daibousou

The Crater

Also known as The Crater.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Mystery , Sci-Fi , Supernatural

A man from the slums faces his doppelganger from the other side of the tracks; three guests visiting a hot spring are reminded of their past sins by a magical ringing bell only they can hear; stranded on the moon, an astronaut is stuck within a crater, sustained for a century by a mysterious life-giving gaseous fume the moon crater expels. The Crater is a collection of self-contained short stories, ranging from horror, mystery, to science fiction. World renowned author Osamu Tezuka introduces you to an ominous world of sin and regret—you don’t want to miss this one!



Tags: Shounen , Time Manipulation , Anthology , Male Protagonist , Amnesia , Ghost , Episodic , War , College , Body Swapping , Aliens , Foreign , Cars , Military

Hi no Yama

Also known as The Thief Inoue Akikazu.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Psychological , Thriller

Peter Kyulten no Kiroku (The Record of Peter Kyulten)
Peter Kürten, a former prisoner-of-war, forms an idealistic couple with his wife and is a devoted unionist at meetings. In actuality he is a sexually perverted serial killer nicknamed the Vampire of Düsseldorf who taunts the police with escalating murders. After one of the murders, the police force a fake confession from another man, causing Peter to angrily reveal the truth to his wife, who gives him up to the police. At trial it is revealed that Peter is actually a criminal with a history of incest, bestiality, arson, and murder. When his lawyer tries to defend him by claiming madness, Peter angrily exclaims that his actions are revenge against the bourgeois. Peter is executed by guillotine. (Tezuka based the story on the work of Shunsuke Tsurumi)

Monouge na Yoru (Sensual Nights)
A wealthy Japanese playboy visits Vietnam to seduce a woman who has supposedly stopped aging while waiting for her sweetheart who was taken away by soldiers. As he is in the middle of preparing to have sex with her, his contact tells him that the woman's man was taken away by the Japanese army during the Pacific War, causing a deep hatred of Japanese people in her. He panics, but recovers when the woman reacts by offering him her body. When she fights back against his attempts at intimacy, he tells her that her lover is likely dead and forces himself on her. The man then sees a sight of a wrinkled old woman that startles him so much he jumps out of the window. The woman he had seduced was actually the daughter of the unaging woman and her sweetheart, and his contact was her fiancé.

Mogami-dono Shimatsu (Lord Iechika Mogami)
Piipii, a meager farmer, dreams of being a samurai so he can support his wife and their four children. One day he is employed by a lord to be his double, and Piipii's family is secretly killed. Piipii trains to be a lord, grooming and dressing himself to be the spitting image of the lord. As a test, the lord tells him to give the order to open the castle gates. Piipii rides back to visit his family, only to learn about their deaths. On the lord's wedding day, his double is supposed to replace him during the wedding ceremony to protect him from any attempts on his life. During the switch, Piipii murders the lord and consummates the marriage with the lady Sasa instead. When she learns of his identity, the lady has an affair with a syphilitic beggar, and kills herself. The disease spreads to Piipii and Sasa gets her revenge.

Rhine no Yakata nite (The Lay of the Rhine)
A Japanese woman accompanies her husband on a business trip to Düsseldorf. She catches him having an affair, and when she confronts him, he leaves her. As she desperately searches for him in the streets, the woman is hit by a car and is hospitalized for a month. When she recovers, she visits her benefactor Lady Rathwood, the owner of a castle they had visited earlier. As she lives with Lady Rathwood, the woman learns of her hatred for men and her hatred for her husband is kindled. One day she discovers that the car she was hit with belongs to Lady Rathwood and she witnesses Lady Rathwood taking off the disguise of the woman who seduced her husband. Lady Rathwood calls her husband to the castle and gives the woman a knife, telling her to take her revenge. The woman refuses and goes back to her husband.

Hi no Yama (Fire Mountain/The Thief Inoue Akikazu)
Time is during the Second World War. The roughing Inoue Showa went to the Sobetsu village in Hokkaido, became an assistant of Mr. Masao Mimatsu, an observer of Showa Shinzan, which rapidly generated. The description that Mikami lived for the observation and protection of Showa Shinzan was based on a true story.

(Sources: Wikipedia & osamutezuka.net, edited)

Tags: Primarily Adult Cast , Anthology , Seinen , Historical , Nudity , Revenge , Foreign

Tokei Jikake no Ringo

Also known as Clockwork Apple.

Status: Finished
Genres: Action , Drama , Horror , Mystery , Sci-Fi

Osamu Tezuka unleashes several creepy suspenseful short stories in this anthology of speculative fiction spanning the years of 1968 thru 1973.

When a Nazi lieutenant is sentenced to death for war crimes, he expects to escape with his life, but hubris is his downfall.
A female android marries for love but is soon lost, and she must deal with the consequences.
After a married man finds out his city is being experimented on, he tries to save the people while struggling with adulterous thoughts.
On a dark and lonely road, a cabby picks up a shady man who threatens him, but little does his passenger know the cabby is not as he seems.
An educated man falls in love with an elusive woman who has a life altering secret.
American school kids learn the cruelty of war.
A revolutionary fails his revolution,
and an interstellar peace conference does not yield the hoped for results when space hippies defy peace conventions.

These eerie stories will leave one wandering the depths of despair and hope against all odds.



Tags: Crime , War , Anthology , Tragedy , Artificial Intelligence , Space , Nudity , Twins

Lion Books

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Fantasy , Sci-Fi

It is a series of short stories that freely develop SF-like ideas. Returning from their exploration of Venus, the expedition saw a devastated earth... A boy faces a thug at a space airport where the lives of various aliens intersect... It is a pioneering serie in which Osamu Tezuka's SF-like concept was developed vertically and horizontally in such various settings in various eras.



Tags: Anthology , Shounen