Osamu Tezuka was born in 1928 and as a child was a fanatical fan of early Walt Disney animation. His cinematic-style, story in the immediate postwar years completely changed the entire concept of children's comics. Today Tezuka remains on the front lines of the industry in creativity, productivity, and popularity. Among the people raised on his comics, he is akin to a national hero for Japan.

One of Tezuka's greatest strengths is that he is more than a comic artist. he has a parallel career in animation. In 1962, Tezuka formed Mushi Productions, where he animated some of his most popular stories, including Astro Boy; Kimba, the White Lion; and Princess Knight for TV.

Tesuka's stories often have a scientific and medical bent because he is a licensed physician with a medical degree from Osaka University's College of Medicine. Some of the examples are Phoenix and Black Jack.

Phoenix converges on the present from both the future and the past, and jumps at random from ancient Japanese history to thousands of years in the future. Often the same characters appear in different reincarnations. Phoenix has been serialized in comic magazines for girls, boys, and young adults and now runs to over 3,000 pages, usually published as a nine-volume series of hardback or paperback books. In 1978, parts of the Phoenix were dramatized on the radio and made into a rather unsuccessful live-action feature film.

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