Osamu Tezuka's Ayako Manga Listed by Amazon

posted on 2010-01-13 23:12 EST

Postwar family drama from pioneering manga creator

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The Amazon online retailer is listing the following title from the North American manga publisher Vertical:

Ayako
Osamu Tezuka
704 pages
October 19, 2010


Amazon's listings do not necessarily indicate definite release plans or dates. Ayako originally ran in Shogakukan's Big Comic magazine from 1972 to 1973. The official website for Tezuka's works listed the following story description for Ayako in 2008:

Ayako is a social drama that depicts the fall of an old family in the Tohoku (northern) region after Japan's defeat in the war in 1945. Ayako, the youngest child in the Tenge family, is an illegitimate child between Sakuemon, a large landowner and the head of the family, and Sue, wife of Sakuemon's first son, Ichiro.

Sakuemon's second son, Jiro, has just returned from the war and is involved in the assassination of the head of the leftist party's local chapter in his hometown, Yodoyama. He is witnessed washing his bloodstained shirt by Ayako and Oryo, and kills Oryo. Ichiro, fearful of disgracing the family name, lets Jiro escape and shuts Ayako in an old storehouse. Time passes by and Ayako grows into a beautiful young lady in the storehouse. One day the storehouse is destroyed because of road construction, and Ayako is finally set free after 20 years of confinement. But for Ayako, who has the pure heart of an innocent girl, the world is filled with dangerous and greedy people.

Source: Kuriousity

Update: More background and story information added, and cover image corrected. Thanks, calaggie.