Paper Fortress

"Essay on Idleness of Animals" is a very short story that combines narrative with a sarcastic touch delivered through animals. Beginning with the monkey in the first episode, a different animal is featured in each story. Tezuka Osamu used various writing and drawing techniques to depict the unique characteristics of each animal. At the time, this work was noteworthy for its experimental cartoon form. Of particular interest are the second episode "Raccoon Dog" and the eleventh episode "Horse" because Tezuka Osamu used his hometown Takarazuka as a backdrop for the narrative of the Manga in these two episodes.

A short story published in the magazine "Weekly Shonen King" in September 1974 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Tezuka Osamu's career as a mangaka. It is a semi-autobiographical manga that depicts Tezuka's main character, Tetsuro Osamu, modeled after Tezuka himself, who desperately lives his life with a passion for manga while the war intensifies day by day at the end of the Pacific War. In the postscript to the Kodansha edition of Tezuka Osamu's Complete Manga Collection, Tezuka wrote that the manga "contains a great deal of fiction", but many of the events depicted in the manga are based on his own experiences, which he also wrote about in his essays and other writings.

This One Shot was published in "Weekly Shonen King" as the second part of "Kami no Toride" in January 1975. The war is finally over, but this time a desperate food crisis has come, and Tetsuro Osamu struggle to survive has begun again. Osamu steals potatoes from the fields, draws portraits for the occupation soldiers, and receives sweets in exchange for pocket money. For those who have to make it through the day, even the dead bodies of the dead are out of sight. Although the story is light-hearted and filled with gags, it has a sense of reality that could only have been depicted by someone who actually lived during this period. Initially, Tezuka planned to make this a trilogy of "Kami no Toride", but the third part was never drawn.