Foolishly holding fast to his virus theory, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, Tatsugaura eventually slips into a coma and succumbs to the disease. However fate takes a hand and Tatsugaura contracts Monmow. However, Urabe, one of Osanai’s colleagues, brings the South African nun, Sister Helen, to the same conference and explains that she has contracted Monmow by drinking contaminated water – a revelation which supports Osanai’s theory that the cause of Monmow is endemic rather than viral.ĭespite this, and Osanai making a dramatic appearance and exposing his misdeeds, Tatsugaura wins the JMA presidential election. At a medical conference he presents his theory that Monmow is caused by a virus. With his disappearance, Tatsugaura orders Osanai’s name to be deleted from the registry of the doctors at “M” University. Meanwhile, back in Japan, Tatsugaura’s schemes have steadily been coming to fruition.

When Tazu is murdered by a rapist, he decides to leave the village and goes on a journey of self-discovery which leads him to Taiwan and eventually sees him accept his fate as a doctor with the face of a dog and settle in a remote town in the Syrian desert. Osanai is confined within the village, gives up on his engagement to Izumi and marries a village girl named Tazu to gain acceptance and keep him safe from the wrath of the village, and does indeed contract the dreaded Monmow.Īlthough Osanai, with Tazu’s help, eventually discovers that Monmow is caused by chemicals seeping into local the river water and is able to stop the disease from progressing, he is unable to find a cure that will reverse the effects. Things go according to Tatsugaura’s nefarious plans, Dr. Osanai to do an on-site study of Inugamizawa, where he is sure to contract the dreaded disease. Osanai, a member of the Young Doctors’ Association. Tatsugaura, who plans to publish his virus-based theory of Monmow and use it as leverage in order to win the presidential election of the Japan Medical Association (JMA), seeks to eliminate his key rival, Dr. The disease, known as ‘Monmow’, causes the bones of the body shrink and enlarge in strange proportions, making the body of the sufferer twist into a dog-like shape before death. The story opens with the two doctors of “M” University investigating a rare incurable disease found only in the remote village of Inugamisawa – a pun on the Japanese word for “dog”, Inu (犬).

It is also Tezuka’s first step into a genre he would later master with Black Jack (1973-83) and A Tree in the Sun (1981-86) – the medical drama. Ode to Kirihito (1970-71), originally serialized in Big Comic from April 1970 to December 1971, is part of Tezuka’s general shift in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s towards more mature subject matter.

Ode to Kirihito by Osamu Tezuka