Phoenix: Dawn / Osamu Tezuka : 5 of 5

I never dreamed that this volume of the Phoenix saga could be better than the last one (which is actually the second in the series), but I poured through this 340 page manga at top speed! Tezuka's Phoenix series is fascinating - it was designed to bounce back and forth between the extreme past and extreme future, eventually meeting in the middle at the present, presumably. This volume takes place in the distant past (the last I read was in the future), and it involves the pre-history of Japan, including epic battles, a mystical queen, and the friendship of a boy and his master (who is "reincarnated" in the future volume!). Of course, there are tons of other characters, and this book alone covers years and years of time - this is truly manga on a grand scale. The violence in this volume was pretty shocking to me (lots of death, killing animals, even babies), but it all works in a historical context. Through it all, the phoenix flies and is always reborn, preaching her message, "You must keep on living, because you have the right to!" I can't wait to keep reading this series as fast as they can translate them!