History Manga / Phoenix

* UsefulNotes/KoreansInJapan: Nerima, the hero of the ''Sun'' arc is a Korean prince escaping from the just-fallen kingdom of Baekje.

*** Other characters performed their fair share of atrocities, yet Akon no Suke is the only one we know of who is forced to live through something on the the level of the loop of coming to the temple, killing herself, becoming the healer, realizing the truth, and wait to be killed by her past self. The situation does indeed come off as being a tract against suicide that ended up being {{Disproportionate Retribution}}.

* {{God Save Us From The Queen}}: Himiko from ''Dawn''.

* {{Laser Guided Karma}}: In the fittingly named ''Karma'', [[spoiler: {{Smug Snake}} Akanemaru is killed in a fire just after exposing Gao's past, which led to Gao's remaining arm being chopped off. The kicker is that Akanemaru will never again be reborn as a human.]]

* {{Mood Whiplash}}
* NoKoreansInJapan: Subverted, as Nerima, the hero of the ''Sun'' arc is a Korean prince escaping from the just-fallen kingdom of Baekje.

* SceneryPorn: This being OsamuTezuka, there are tons of splash pages devoted to showing off gorgeously rendered landscapes and architecture. Note that his humans are always simple and cartoony despite backgrounds that range from simplified props to photorealistic environments.

''Phoenix'' (火の鳥) is a manga series by {{Osamu Tezuka}} that ran from 1967 to 1988, and is considered by the man himself to be his greatest work.

Not to be confused with ''PhoenixWright'', the french band ''Phoenix,'' the (unrelated to each other) coin-op videogames Phoenix or ''Space Firebirds'', TheNineties [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_%28TV_series%29 Australian police mini-series]], the Phoenix air-to-air missile, or Phoenix, Arizona.

* BlackAndGrayMorality: Mostly grays, but you're more likely to find a totally evil character than a perfectly good character. Gao, for instance, is one of the more purely good protagonists... if not for his start as an indiscriminate thief and mass murderer. It is notable that killing seems to be considered acceptable if one does it to survive, as it is no different than hunting (one of the themes, especially in Gao's book ''Karma,'' is that all life is equal).

Tropes in this manga series include:

* AuthorExistenceFailure: Tezuka had planned for there to be at least one more installment of the series. Many people, including Frederick Schodt, believed that because each subsequent chapter took place closer to the present day than the last one (all new "past" chapters would take place after the previous one, all new "future" chapters would take place before the previous one) that the very last chapter would take place in the present day (or at least in the year it was published). However, Tezuka never got that far. This sequence is broken by the last installment--"Sun"--where the past installment takes place before the previous one ("Civil War" in this case.) Sun also takes places in both the past and present, which suggests it may have been intended as an end-piece for the series.

* DoingintheScientist: Earlier stories implied that most supernatural phenomena and creatures seem by people were merely exotic or extraterrestrial beings that humans wrongly assumpted to be supernatural. Later stories, however, presented actual youkai.

* AuthorExistenceFailure: Tezuka intended to close the series with an arc that took place in the present and somehow tied all the series' motifs together. However, he died well before reaching that point, leaving behind only the synopsis for a storyline, ''Earth,'' which was to take place in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, 1938.

* HeelFaceTurn: While he doesn't have any sides to switch between, Gao in ''Karma'' more or less goes from villain to TheMessiah.

* BigBadassWolf: Nerima in the ''Sun'' arc.

* TinMan: Robot Chihiro in ''Nostalgia'' says that it has "no heart" and does not feel any emotions. Despite this, it helps the protagonists accomplish their missions and Com asks Roomi how could a supposedly heartless robot be so kind to them while most of the humans they have met were mean.

* TinMan: Robot Chihiro in ''Nostalgia'' says that it has "no heart" and does not feel any emotions. Despite this, it helps the protagonists accomplish their missions and Com asks Roomi how could a supposedly heartless robot be so kind to them while most the humans they have met were mean.

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: In ''Life'', a TV producer decides that in order for human clones to be hunted and killed without remorse, they'd have to have a misshapen anatomy to not be considered human anymore.

Not to be confused with ''PhoenixWright'', the band ''Phoenix,'' the (unrelated to each other) coin-op videogames Phoenix or ''Space Firebirds'', TheNineties [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_%28TV_series%29 Australian police mini-series]], the Phoenix air-to-air missile, or Phoenix, Arizona.

''Phoenix'' (火の鳥) is a manga series by {{Osamu Tezuka}} that ran from 1967 to 1988, and is considered by the latter to be his life's works.

* HeelFaceTurn: While he doesn't have any sides to switch between, Gao in ''Karma'' more or less goes from CompleteMonster to TheMessiah.

* CanonImmigrant: Robita the robot reappears in the 2003 ''AstroBoy'' animated series, recolored yellow, becoming a RobotMaid to Astro's family. He/she is not part of Tezuka's Star System, though.

There have been two {{OAV}} and two animated movies.

* ExecutiveMeddling: Pretty much any attempt at making Phoenix into an anime has been faced with massive changes to the plot.

* DisproportionateRetribution: In ''Strange Beings'', Akon no Suke and her [[InnocentBystander completely innocent]] [[{{Nakama}} retainer]] are sentenced to [[YearInsideHourOutside several decades]] of imprisonment in an [[TailorMadePrison inescapable mountain temple]] adrift in time and space, caring for sick and injured humans and monsters for killing an elderly nun who... wait for it... is the future version of the Samurai after spending decades of imprisonment for killing her older self, essentially commiting suicide. Furthering the MoralDissonance is that her younger self did so to avoid her future nun-self from saving the life of her EvilOverlord father so he would cease his warring and murdering. So basically the WarpedAesop is suicide is wrong, even if it saves countless lives, and decades of forced penance is not necessarily enough to balance your {{karma}}. The icing on this cake is that she came to realize her younger self would come and kill her, and [[FaceDeathWithDignity was powerless to stop her]].

* StarSystem: Recurring characters who appear are Saruta (almost the hero of the series), Rock, Acetylene Lamp, Duke Red and even Manga/BlackJack.

* {{The Caligula}}: Queen Himiko

* NoKoreansInJapan: Subverted, as Nerima, the hero of the ''Sun'' arc is a Korean prince.

* StarSystem: Recurring characters who appear are Saruta (almost the hero of the series), Rock, Acetylene Lamp, Duke Red and even BlackJack.

* DisproportionateRetribution: In ''Strange Beings'', Akon no Suke and her [[InnocentBystander completely innocent]] [[{{Nakama}} retainer]] are sentenced to [[YearInsideHourOutside several decades]] of imprisonment in an [[{{Oubliette}} inescapable mountain temple]] adrift in time and space, caring for sick and injured humans and monsters for killing an elderly nun who... wait for it... is the future version of the Samurai after spending decades of imprisonment for killing her older self, essentially commiting suicide. Furthering the MoralDissonance is that her younger self did so to avoid her future nun-self from saving the life of her EvilOverlord father so he would cease his warring and murdering. So basically the WarpedAesop is suicide is wrong, even if it saves countless lives, and decades of forced penance is not necessarily enough to balance your {{karma}}. The icing on this cake is that she came to realize her younger self would come and kill her, and [[FaceDeathWithDignity was powerless to stop her]].

* GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe: Nakamura meets a race of bird people, and gets engaged to an attractive bird-woman (though he makes fun of her legs). [[spoiler:It ends poorly with him eating "her legs for dinner"]].