There have been many tales of the future, of course, by authors from all cultures. Generally, those who read them do so for the purposes of entertainment, and/or to enter into philosophical debate of the ideas presented by the tales. The practice of beginning a story by alleging it to be a true one, and relating how the author came to know of it (often through an account of the discovery of a manuscript, or a meeting with the tale's protagonist) ceased to be fashionable in the previous century. But a certain sort of mind is often compelled to wonder whether such a change in taste might have been deliberately introduced so as to allow authors to present their tales in the form of fiction, allowing them to be widely recieved, whereas their appearance as alleged fact would be dismissed.
Schroeder, in a sequence of articles, has done much to suggest ways and means by which knowledge of future events has come to authors of science fiction, from Isaac Asimov to the producers of Star Trek. For my own part, I have avoided such speculation concerning how the creators of certain Japanese animations and comic strips (hereafter, anime and manga) preferring to suggest that they were simply precognitive. Recently, however, I realized that such a widespread paranormal phenomenon was not merely unlikely, but also unnecessary. It is my belief that the roots of such foreknowledge can be found at the very origin of these modes of entertainment, in one man, rightly called the God of Japanese Comics.
In the late summer of 1946, Tezuka Osamu (1928-1989) was intending to begin his university studies. It seems likely that he was also experimenting with the drawings that would, later that year, become his first published work, "Ma-chan no nikkicho" ("Ma-chan's Diary"). What is not generally recorded in his official biography was the trip he took to Tokyo in that summer following the end of the Pacific War -- which is perhaps not surprising, given that the American authorities were very quick to cover those events up.
It was Tezuka's fate to be in Tokyo when the creature initially termed "G" (for giant) and later named "Gojira", after the films it inspired, made its presence known. He avoided serious injury, and it can be said with some honesty that the events were ultimately to his benefit, for he there met the man who would become the inspiration for his classic character "Blackjack"[1] and watched him perform medical miracles. But on the whole, it must have left him extremely uneasy concerning the future of the world, if atomic power might produce more such horrors. Yet he went on to write highly optimistic stories about the future.
In one of the more famous sequences of his most famous series, "Tetsuwan Atom" ("Mighty Atom", better known to American audiences as "Astro Boy") the robotic hero is accidentally thrown backwards in time to the 1960s, while trying to help Earth-stranded aliens. There, he meets the man who will become his mentor, Dr. Ochanomizu (Dr. Pachydermus in the American adaptation) as a young man, and has several adventures before his batteries begin to wear out. Without access to replacements, Astro Boy climbs the side of Mount Fuji to an isolated area, lies down, and "dies". However, he has also met the aliens whom he attempted to help, and because of this change in history, his future self will not be thrown backwards in time.
It is my belief that there is a secret behind this tale. The first hint to that secret can be found in the character's first appearance, in which he was called "Atom Taishi" -- sometimes translated as "Captain Atom", but usually presented as "Ambassador Atom". An Ambassador, of course, is a visitor to a place. Tezuka-sensei hinted at it again when the classic tales were reprinted in the 1970s with new "bridging" material featuring the artist interacting with his characters and explaining the stories to the audience. He was implying that he had, in fact met his "creation" -- not merely in imagination, but in reality.
Essentially, the tale of the robot hero's adventures in the 1960s actually occurred in the late 1940s. The episode depicting his involuntary involvement in the American war in Vietnam actually referred to the French war in Indochina, then in its infancy. And sometime in this period, Mighty Atom/Astro Boy met Tezuka Osamu. Perhaps they met by chance, with Astro saving the young artist's life. Or perhaps the robot sought out the man who had, in his future but Astro's past, told stories about a robot who seemed eerily familiar. Not for nothing is the river of time often compared to the Circle of Ourouboros.
So Astro told his chronicler-to-be about the future that was to come, and Tezuka fascinatedly took notes. The future he related was one where there was difficulties, but also hope. Bad things were going to happen, as with Tezuka's story of the first robot to attempt to claim citizenship, but good ones would as well. It was a story that captured his own imagination just as his own stories would come to capture that of generations of children, on every continent, for decades to come.
But there was more. One other element of the truth was not revealed in the published version of these events. Tezuka's tales were not strong in the area that American graphic artists later termed "continuity". They were largely episodes, rather than chapters in a saga. The characters did not change a great deal over the years, and I believe that this is further evidence of their origin in fact, for Astro couldn't have told Tezuka everything.[2] And so I believe that when Astro told the story of how he had found himself in the past, he neglected to reveal from how far in the future he had travelled -- and that he had come from a point in his own timeline much further from his origins than the tales revealed.
Consider that Astro, while more deserving of the title human than many born to it, is/was/will be also a machine. With regular maintenance, he could exist for centuries. And so he had, when he came to be tossed back in time, which meant that it was not only his own history that he related to Tezuka Osamu, but an entire history of the future.
Nor was Tezuka the only one to benefit from that account. In the early 1960s, he helped to create the Japanese "school" of animation. It is possible that certain animators who worked for his production house were eventually allowed to see the notes. Rumours about them and their contents might have spread to their colleauges, until it was an open secret that an account of the future existed. As a result, many of the tales of the future portrayed in Japanese animation or comics were inspired by the notes' contents.
Of course, even those who had actually seen the notes would not necessarily have gotten all of the details correct. It might be that a passage from the notes about an attack on the planet Earth in the twenty-second century, and the desperate attempt to prevent another such, resulting in the longest journey ever undertaken by humans to that point, inspired the events chronicled by the creators of "Uchuu Senkan Yamato" ("Space Battleship Yamato", adapted as "Star Blazers"), when they actually referred to the Xindi attack on Earth and the voyage of the Enterprise.[3] Or an account of a war between Earth and Jupiter inspired the series "Martian Sucessor Nadesico" when the notes actually detailed events already described in the novel Triplanetary. But sometimes, these creators were absolutely correct in what they created. Who can say what Astro revealed?
Those who object that revealing the truth in fictionalized form would make it less likely to happen are ignoring their own history. After all, Star Trek predicted, in the early 1960s, that a war would be fought by genetically engineered supermen in the early 1990s. And this happened, after all, though the fact that the Tyrant of Asia (who did apparently use the alias Khan Noonian Singh at one point) claimed to be a genetically enhanced human was not revealed until well after the war was over. Likewise, the commanders of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police's Special Vehicle Division have acknowledged that the creators of the multimedia entertainment Patlabor accurately predicted many of the difficulties their sections would encounter.
In fact, it may be that my earlier speculation concerning Astro's reason for seeking out Tezuka Osamu were inaccurate, and there never had been an "Astro Boy" comic strip or animation in his world's history. But just as with the predictions above, it is possible that revealing the truth in this manner made it more likely that it happened.
Returning to Astro again: after revealing the future to Tezuka, the robot revealed that he was "dying". Possibly the tale of his "pilgramage" to Fuji-zan was true, or possibly the cartoonist invented it to cover the actual location of Astro's remains. It is my belief, however, that Astro ceased to function in 1951 ... only a few months before or after his comics would premiere.
But I do not believe that was the end of it. Instead, I believe that something lingered in his remains. At some point in our future, when a distraught and disturbed scientist is moved to create an amazing robot in his late son's image, that something will move into the body and give it life, just as Tezuka portrayed it as doing. Perhaps that thing will be what Cybertronians are said to call "a spark"; perhaps it is what Shinto refers to as "kami".
Or perhaps it is as simple as what a fairy is said to have told a velveteen rabbit, many years ago: "Love makes you real."
[1][1] Dr. Charles McNichol (1912?-1979) essentially drafted Tezuka to assist him at the triage center he established shortly after Gojira's first assault. McNichol's eventual wife, Mai Katsuragi (1925-1972) records that, during the incident, an American executive insisted that his slightly injured son should receive treatment in preference to more seriously injured Japanese children, going so far as to say he would pay for such preferential treatment. McNichols, who had been hideously scarred in the Spanish Civil War, turned to look at the executive and said that he would immediately treat the boy if his father paid him one million American dollars in cash.
[2][2] Indeed, I suspect that one detail that Tezuka deliberately fudged was the date of Astro's creation, given as 2003 in the 1970s retelling. I suspect that it is actually a few decades in the future (around the 2040s) and that the cartoonist moved it backwards to make it more plausible to the audience. (Ironically, he believed that the great differences between Astro's world and ours would develop more quickly than they actually have.)
[3][3] Schroeder uncovered the possibility that Star Trek: The Next Generation was made based on accounts written by an individual claiming to be Mark Twain. I suspect that this is only part of the story, considering the many references to Japanese animation in the series' first few seasons, and the fact that the Enterprise of that era had a sister ship named Yamato.