The Tezuka Star System Taken to the Extreme? Saint Seiya's Callbacks to Masami Kurumada's Prior Works

If you've read manga for a decent enough amount of time you more than likely have noticed that some mangaka have a habit of re-using certain character design "templates", if you will, and while some may try writing it off as "laziness" the truth of the matter is that there's actually a name for this concept: The Tezuka Star System. Officially titled the Tezuka Manga no Character Ichiran/Tezuka Manga Character List in Japan, the Tezuka Star System was the late Osamu Tezuka's habit of reusing certain characters across his various manga, as though they were actors being cast in multiple roles across numerous productions, with the English name for this concept being a reference to the real world "star system" that Hollywood utilized from the 1920s through the 1960s. For example, iconic characters like Astro/Atom, Black Jack, & Don Dracula have made appearances more or less as themselves (or, at least characters with the same designs & names) across various manga or anime from Tezuka, while characters like Rock Holmes, Ham Egg, Shunsaku Ban, Acetylene Lamp, & many others appear in various productions as essentially the same character they play in other ones. Therefore, Rock is often a "bad boy", Ham Egg is a villain, Shunsaku is a well-meaning good guy, Lamp is conniving, etc., & even Tezuka himself was a part of this, appearing in various series as a mangaka. Tezuka liked to treat his characters as though they were actors, even joking that some received "pay raises" if they performed well, and by reusing these characters readers could instantly get a bead on the kind of character these "actors" were portraying in a work, and sometimes he could even have them "play against type", like how Rock was originally a consistently heroic character before going "bad".

One mangaka that absolutely adheres to the Tezuka Star System is Masami Kurumada.

As you can see in the image above, for his 50th Anniversary art exhibition that was unfortunately cancelled, Masami Kurumada tends to use the same character template for his main characters, with some exceptions, like Okita Souji in Akane-Iro no Kaze, Maya in Evil Crusher Maya, and most notably Rei Kojinyama in Sukeban Arashi, which remains Kurumada's sole female lead. In fact, it's with Kurumada's debut work from 1974 that his form of the Tezuka Star System really got started, as Rei would be "recast" as Kiku Takane in Ring ni Kakero, her love interest Morita would be "recast" as Jun Kenzaki in RnK, & even her rival Shizuka Ayakoji would eventually "return" as Himeko Hojo in Fuma no Kojirou, among some other "recurring actors". Of course, the big one would be Ryuji Takane from Ring ni Kakero, who would become the recurring main character template I previously mentioned, being "recast" for Kojirou in FnK, Jingi Kikukawa in Otoko Zaka, Pegasus Seiya in Saint Seiya, Aoi Tendo in Aoi Tori no Shinwa, Sho in Silent Knight Sho, Teppei Takamiya in B't X, & most recently Pegasus Tenma in Saint Seiya: Next Dimension; it's really no different than how Tim Burton would often cast Johnny Depp or Helena Bonham Carter in many of his films (8 & 7 out of 20, so far, respectively). However, when it came to one specific work, Kurumada seemingly decided to take the Tezuka Star System to its absolute limit.

Upon debuting Saint Seiya in Weekly Shonen Jump Combined Issue #1-2 of 1986 Kurumada had been making manga professionally for nearly 12 whole years, and while there were naturally long-term Jump readers who would continue to read the magazine for as long as they could, there was also now new, younger, generations of readers who might have at least heard of Ring ni Kakero or Fuma no Kojirou, but had only really known of Kurumada by way of Otoko Zaka's failure, at best. Therefore, Kurumada seemingly decided to reutilize many concepts, names, & terminology from his prior two hit works, but mainly from Ring ni Kakero, and repurpose them into new forms, if possible. That way, long-term fans of Kurumada's work would be able to identify the reference & have some bonus fun in that way, while the newer readers would be able to experience it for the very first time, and ideally in a way that's unique for them. In essence, Kurumada took the Tezuka Star System when it came to Saint Seiya & expanded it into more than just characters, and while some might try to argue that it's, once again, "laziness" there's no denying that the concept worked, as Saint Seiya is what people immediately think of first, despite some of its stuff being callbacks to Kurumada's prior works.

While I can't claim that I've collected them all, let's take a look at the ones I picked up on while re-reading Saint Seiya for the recent review of the manga I did.

Saint Seiya (Manga): Selling Out? More Like Bleeding Out (Especially When It's Shiryu)

When Masami Kurumada debuted his fourth serialized manga in Weekly Shonen Jump, Otoko Zaka, in mid-1984 it was with the plan for it to be the true representation of what kind of storyteller he could be, and with it he finally felt comfortable calling himself a proper "mangaka/manga creator" instead of a mere "mangaya/manga drawer". Unfortunately, due to a variety of factors, Otoko Zaka was a massive flop & Kurumada was forced to bring it all to an end in early 1985 after only 30 weekly chapters, though he was at least able to stand defiant & declare that it was "Incomplete" to readers, rather than admit full closure of its story. Still, it was a sense of defeat that Kurumada had not really experienced since the cancellation of his debut serialization, Sukeban Arashi, a decade prior, but whereas Sukeban Arashi was simply a case of a newbie still learning how to adjust to the weekly manga grind Otoko Zaka's cancellation was partially caused by one man: Masami Kurumada himself. While planning out his (intended) magnum opus over the past decade Kurumada wound up altering the landscape of shonen action manga with both Ring ni Kakero & (to a smaller extent) Fuma no Kojirou, so when Otoko Zaka saw Kurumada eschew a lot of the more spectacular elements of RnK & FnK for a (somewhat) more grounded tale that called back to stuff like Otoko Ippiki Gaki Daisho from the late 60s & early 70s, it was immensely outdated when compared to the likes of Kinnikuman, Fist of the North Star, & later Dragon Ball that were running in Jump at the time, all of which took some influence & inspiration from Ring ni Kakero.

Therefore, Masami Kurumada seemingly came to one conclusion: If the readers didn't want the kind of manga that he wanted to make, then he'd make the kind of manga that he knew readers would love.

Taking the second half of 1985 to conceive of his next work, Kurumada initially thought of making a wrestling manga, before moving over to a karate or judo manga, but after some denials from his editor he went in a different direction. Instead of sports, Kurumada decided to make a more general "nekketsu/hot-blooded" action manga, one with an aspect of "fashion" to it, to contrast with how his prior manga all featured characters garbed in traditional school gakuran or simple sports garb. Specifically, he looked to his fascination with Greek mythology (which he had previously utilized for Team Greece & the 12 Gods of Greece in Ring ni Kakero) & combined that with the idea of constellations, resulting in the idea that his characters would wear personalized armor to battle, which also allowed him to make more explosive & spark-laden combat, which the armor could act as protection for. Originally going with the title "Ginga no Rin/Rin of the Galaxy", Kurumada decided to change the lead's name to "Seiya", initially using the kanji 聖矢/Holy Arrow before deciding on 星矢/Star Arrow, to better match the constellation theme; likewise, one of the first ideas Kurumada had for "Seiya" was a special attack that looked like a meteor shower. Finally, Kurumada would decide to name this new manga Saint Seiya, after both the lead's finalized name & the fact that he was a "Saint", which in this case was the name of the armored warriors who fight for Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom, warfare (specifically strategy & generalship), & handicraft. In the end, Saint Seiya would debut in Combined Issue #1-2 of Weekly Shonen Jump in 1986, and while it initially had a bit of a rough start in its first year, it would eventually go on to find success... and then some.