FLYING BEN / フライングベン - OSAMU TEZUKA (1966)

Flying Ben was first serialized in the popular manga magazine "Shonen Book" from February 1966 to October 1967. It has since been republished several times and is vastly unknown even in Japan, despite its infamous author. The canines in this manga are drawn in a toony, fluid style and the humanoid characters remain very typical of Tezuka's other works, such as Astro Boy and Jungle Emperor - In fact, a few characters from other Tezuka's other works even make direct cameos.

The story surrounds three dogs born in Rome's ancient catacombs. The puppies find an ancient medicine which they drink, and it subsequently causes them grow to their adult sizes swiftly in comparison to their typical canine counterparts. In addition, this ancient medicine has gifted them with incredible abilities such as super strength, speed, and the ability to understand human speech.

Things complicate furthermore for these dogs with the involvement of a boy named Tadashi, secret organizations of both good and bad natures, and a desperate hunt for treasure down the Silk Road. True to Tezuka's trademark, this story does not shy away from serious subject matter or disasters.

Flying Ben's first appearance in February Shonen Book, 1966

The original print in Shonen Book featured a number of coloured pages prefacing most chapters, and some issues came with smaller 'furoku' booklets that would contain that month's installment as a little separate bonus item to collect.
(Shonen Book issue page left, furoku book right)

 The furokus have a number of bonus artworks that were not included in future republications. These tend to be off model from the manga itself, which makes them further interesting to me.

From left to right: Uru, Puchi, and Ben.

Despite being siblings, these three dogs could not be more different from one another. While Ben uses his abilities for every good deed he can serve, Uru is easily swayed by bad intentions which makes them clash on a very frequent basis. Puchi is gentle, motherly and kind. Despite their different personalities, loyalty is of upmost importance to all of them.

The story of the manga takes very sudden turns, and is a story that'll go from zero to a hundred over a few pages which some readers have told me, was a little off-putting. I personally loved the story, and I feel like it truly was something very original in its time. I do think you may have to bear some semblance as a Tezuka fan to truly appreciate this one.

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Some things I really love in this manga:

The expressions. Ben in particular resembles Cesar / Panja from Jungle Emperor when he cracks a grin, and I love it. Uru too, resembles other villains from Tezuka's other works, and it's charming.

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The gestures of the canine characters. Though they understand human speech, they sure can't speak it. Often this results in gesturing that is clear and delightful, with no need of written language to convey meaning. They're very toony and whimsical, and Tezuka's style really shines here. His influence between Disney, his Japanese roots, and old western cartoons all come together to compose his own style and it sure makes some panels real gems.

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The lines of action in fast-paced panels - With the dogs being the canine equivalents of Superman, there's a huge amount of speed involved in some scenes. Despite being single panels, you can see so much movement in them as Tezuka slashes down clear, thick paths of movement. The bodies of the characters blend into these movement paths without losing their form.

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Some very atmospheric panels that make me want to break out the paper and traditional inks, myself:

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Numerous fight sequences between Ben and Uru that resemble pure chaos, and certainly not something you'd want to stick your arm into:

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Overall, like in most of his works, you can just tell that Tezuka is having a blast doing his own thing. His style was unique back then, and it still is today. So much is defined with only black ink. There's not many pages that implement manga tone sheets either, and it works brilliantly here.

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Though not popular today, this manga seems to have been pretty popular in the late 60s and early 70s. Fanart and fan letters feature heavily in the editorial section of the Shonen Book publications, and some other manga from the time also seem to draw heavy influences from this series.

Here's a few examples:

Arai Hisao's 1976 one-shot, "Dog."

Nagashima Shinji's December 1966 one-shot, "Revenge."

(And goodness, is this one rare-...)

That's one trademark Tezuka deer design.👆

So much here has been inspired by Flying Ben, that listing it all would take too long.

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With the niche popularity that Flying Ben apparently did generate around the years of its release, it's no surprise that it was considered not once, but twice, as a candidate for an anime adaption.
In later editions of the three Flying Ben volumes, Tezuka's afterword reads:

"Two pilot films were made in an effort to adapt "Flying Ben" to television. One of them was produced by Mushi Productions. We spent a lot of money on the episode, but the production was careless and it turned out awful. The second was produced by animator Mr. Tsukioka Sadao, and was funded by myself personally. However by that time, the trend in anime had shifted to comedies so it wasn't picked up. However, I'd like to see "Flying Ben" as a television animation, even just once."

Out there somewhere are two full Flying Ben pilot films. They've become somewhat of a holy grail to me over the years. Though two are mentioned in the afterword of Flying Ben's publication, Tezuka's website only mentions one which lists both Mushi Productions and Tsukioka Sadao in the production. So, I'm baffled as to which one this actually is - The first iteration of the pilot, or the second.

My guess is that it's the first one since the Tezuka website only archives Tezuka's works, and by default, Mushi Productions - and that Tsukioka Sadao was also involved with the Mushi Productions pilot.

There's quite a few screenshots showing what the pilot episode looked like:

(Ben and Uru's names seem to be mixed up in this screenshot I took from the older site.)

It's very odd that Puchi has been rendered into what appears to be a small, yellow dog. Nonetheless, I sure would love to see these characters moving and speaking. I've contacted Tezuka's company several times over the years, but I've never heard back. I'm not sure I'll see either of the pilot films in my lifetime, but one can hold out hope... right?

I also found a brief article in the September 1967 issue of COM magazine. (A magazine Tezuka himself founded and contributed to.)

The characters are introduced, along with a plot that slightly differs from the manga. The pilot appears to have a different story, with the dogs' powers seeming to derive from 'light flowers.'

Some Flying Ben illustrations also appear in my Mushi Productions 1967 calendar. It lines up with the time they intended to release the pilot and produce the rest of the TV series.

(Nice streaks, Tadashi!)

Puchi is more like her manga counterpart in this image, though. I find myself wondering about the production process and just where they decided to go ahead with such a huge change to her appearance.

Interestingly, Ben and Uru also appear in the 1968 Mushi Productions calendar. Perhaps 1968 was the year that the second pilot film was made, or was being planned.

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Merchandise for Flying Ben seems to be limited to book publications, but there are a few rare things floating about in the wild.

Flying Ben Coin - From a Mandarake listing.

Flying Ben "Dog Race" cut-outs, an extra from a Shonen Book issue. Courtesy of "Hyakki" who runs Magazine Flowers.

 

Two very old stickers I own. I have no idea if they're official or not.

Remarkably, Flying Ben does have one other language translation. All three volumes are available in French as part of a larger Tezuka collection.

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All in all, this series is really worth a read. The large blog post I just wrote about this manga certainly makes it obvious I think as much. Flying Ben was also my first foray into fan translation, and it holds a special place in my own collection. Whenever I see these characters moving on the pages, I feel inspired to draw more freely and worry less about poses as Tezuka is clearly doing in this work. His style works so well because he's just having fun writing and drawing his own stories, and boy does it show.

In the future I may do further posts for each chapter, just because I enjoy the art of this manga so much and even this long post felt like it didn't do enough justice in displaying panels and methods I adored seeing through my first read.

You can read Flying Ben on MangaDex in English!