Barbara

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Japanese: ばるぼら

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Type: Manga

Volumes: 1

Chapters: 15

Status: Finished

Published: Jun 25, 1973 to May 10, 1974

Genre: Drama

Serialization: Big Comic

Authors: Tezuka, Osamu (Story & Art)

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Score: 6.97¹ (scored by 1,358 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #9429²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #6741

Members: 3,096

Favorites: 20

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Sep 9, 2012

SNchan

Recommended

Barbara (ばるぼら) is certainly an interesting graphic novel. Serialized in from 1973 to 1974, it was made in a time when Osamu Tezuka was struggling to solidify his place in the seinen genre of comics–while at the same time keep hold of his reputation as a childrens comic artist. The novel follows a somewhat successful novelist, Yousuke Mikura, and the trouble he gets into when he a mysterious woman starts living with him, Barbara.

The first five chapters mainly focus Mikura’s condition as a sexual deviant, where he experience odd hallucinations, and the misadventures that he gets into with Barbara. Although they’re decent enough in their ... own right, the majority of Barbara’s problems lie in these chapters. Many seinen artists at the time were utilizing sex and violence to make their stories more mature. You get the feeling that Tezuka was trying too hard to appeal to the seinen demographic with these chapters, there are several instances of unnecessary nudity and violence; there are several instances of Barbara displaying her breasts for no logical reason, a poorly implemented scene of attempted rape, as well as a twisted portrayal of sadomasochistic culture. They’re decent chapters, just a little rough around the edges.

Another problem is that these chapters bare little relevance to the remainder of the story. Most notably is how Mikura’s sexual deviancy is only mentioned once throughout the the rest of the story; swept under the rug so that it doesn’t get in the way of the plot. And the rest of the plot does benefit from this, which is surprising seeing how his deviancy was initially the most interesting thing about the story. Still, it’s a glaring inconsistency.

After a shift in the narrative, the plot improves drastically. A clear focus and direction is given to the narrative, making it feel more “solid;” instead of being a series of separate misadventures, each chapter contributes to the overall plot–perfectly building up to the climax. The nudity and violence are also given reason and substance, to the point where it no longer feels forced. Mikura doesn’t change much as a person throughout the story, but the journey he goes through is captivating and intriguing. Barbara has a rough start, and it takes a while for things to really come together, but it pulls through in the end–eventually giving us a powerful and poetic conclusion.

One thing of note is that the treatment of women can be a little unsettling. Barbara gets slapped around by Mikura quite a few times, and there’s some subtle overtones of objectification. It’s not particularly surprising seeing how this was 1970s Japan, but it’s still worth pointing out. Not that women-beating wasn’t looked down upon in Japan, because it was, but most of the stuff presented in Barbara wasn’t really something that would have bothered its audience. I personally didn’t enjoy the novel any less because of it, but I could imagine someone more sensitive to such things being irked.

Another thing is that Mikura is a total jerkass, which may or may not add to his depth as a character. As Frederick L. Schodt makes clear in his forward, Mikura’s moral ambiguity was probably intentional, so that we the audience could decide for ourselves how much of a bad person Mikura is. The stuff he does throughout the novel is clearly bad, but it’s difficult to assess just how bad of a person it makes him. He’s mentally insane, and there are external forces which continually screw around with him.

Ultimately, Barbara is a story about love, determination, insanity, success, failure, and how all of that applies to the nature of art. I wouldn’t exactly call it a masterpiece, but it’s definitely up there with Tezuka’s better works.

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Jun 12, 2019

Baba_Zone1

Recommended

First off the score is not 8 but its 7.5

This manga was released in a weird phase of the mangaka life during 1973 to 1974 it was Tezuka Osamu transition period between shounen to seinen work ( more children to mature). Before the manga starts their is a brief history about the man's life and the situation he was in. The protagonist of this story, is intentional or unintentional similar to the author having a huge slump problem.

The Protagonist is not likable, he's an alcoholic, abuser and has sorta mental illness the manga never really clarifies. This manga is the closest thing ...

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Nov 25, 2024

Mara2463

Mixed Feelings

Barbara – Spoiler Free – Mixed Feelings

TLDR
Story – 5/10 – 5 x 0.275 = 1,375
Art – 8/10 – 8 x 0.2 = 1,6
Characters – 6/10 – 6 x 0.225 = 1,35
Enjoyment – 6/10 – 6 x 0.3 = 1,8
Total: 6,125 -> 6

Story – 5/10
... Barbara started out with an interesting premise, but it wasn’t that well-developed.
Barbara is a story about a writer and a homeless alcoholic. We don't quite get the difference between Mikura’s intention when it comes to Barbara: if he only wants to use her as his sexual object, if he only wants to use her as an inspiration for his next novel, as he supposedly does more than once, or if his insanity comes to the fore when it comes to her and there is thus an unusual fixation on Barbara for no apparent reason, or if it is a mixture of all of the above. Probably the last option.
Once more, we have Tezuka’s moral ambiguity, as the main character's – Mikura – actions are very dubious from a moral standpoint, as he is clinically diagnosed with schizophrenia. This makes sense when evaluating some of these more irrational decisions – and there were many. There is also violence and nudity in abundance.
Barbara is a story that clearly suffered from this illness: it is schizophrenic at moments and irrational most of the time, especially when it comes to the unusual fixation with Barbara.
The ending is forgettable and uninteresting.

Art – 8/10
The art style is your typical Tezuka: a solid 8. The character design is well done, the cadence of the panels and the page flow are also good, and the landscapes are gorgeous.

Characters – 6/10
Although the characters are a little bit better than the story, they represent a wasted opportunity to develop the characters. In fact, aside from Mikura, the characters receive almost no type of development, and this includes Barbara: by far the most interesting character in the whole cast.

Enjoyment – 6/10
One cannot say that Barbara is one of the best of Tezuka’s works, as there are a lot of inconsistencies in the storytelling, which may be due to mental illness on the part of the Mikura, but are in general a letdown: at least it doesn't contribute positively to the story. Barbara is a short story that wasn’t well developed, as there could have been way more development character-wise, especially for herself and even Mikura. Barbara is the most interesting character and yet receives barely any development. It doesn't have practically any positive, with the exception of the art style, and is at best a forgettable story, although the characters are a little bit better, it doesn't, unfortunately, deserve a recommendation, for it doesn't deserve to be equated as one of the Godfather of Manga’s best works.

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