My first introduction to Tezuka was the iconic Astroboy manga, so I was very disappointed to hear that we would be reading about mysterious underground mole men instead of intergalactic space odysseys and my favorite android. But I was pleasantly surprised by how enthralled I became while reading this manga. Obviously, the almond eyes, small mouths and pointed chins employed by Tezuka have become a hallmark of the manga genre, and the Mysterious Underground Men undoubtedly helped launch this art form to new altitudes. But there was an interesting plot device used by Tezuka that caught my attention while reading his manga. In the climax of the story, (spoiler alert) Mimio in fact ends up becoming the hero of the story and prevails against the strange humanoids, and not the protagonist John. This is strangely reminiscent of the 1951 (2 years later) movie Superman and the mole men. Both protagonists lost their parents, and were ‘gifted’ (superman with his strength and John with his intellectual capacities), altruistic characters with peculiarly drawn/costumed “underground men”, and the use of a secondary character to help resolve the issue at hand. It came to my attention in class that this story line is actually predated by another story line, the 1864 classic by Jules Verne, Journey to the center of the earth.

But in my eyes, it's the villain that makes the story.

After the conversation in class, it dawned on me that the key word here is mysterious. All of these stories were commercially successful not because of the hero, but because of the villain. These creatures literally come from the depths – from the depths of our subconscious and nightmares. In our desensitized 21^st century point of views, this might not have been a scary story. But I could easily imagine a young Japanese boy in the 1950’s reading a Tezuka comic with a flash light under his bed sheets. The orange paper that mimicks the clay they are digging through, paired with numerous subject to subject transitions makes for a slower paced and suspenseful experience. What makes this story such a memorable experience for me was how the faceless underground men hid in the crevasses of the cave walls like a sinister organism, using closure as a means to create a realistic interpretation of what the creatures look like. I loved this story because this principle of using a creepy, abstract villain, makes for an amazing read.