A seinen manga by Osamu Tezuka
Spoilers! Spoilers!
CHAPTER 1: The Department Store Woman (Shinjuku Station (Tokyo, Japan). Young, warped, famous novelist Yosuke Mikura meets Barbara, a mysterious fuuten/vagabond who is a chronic alcoholic and the youngest daughter of Mnemosyne. Mnemosyne? The Greek goddess of memory who previously had nine daughters (all muses) with Zeus? Will Barbara be able to make Mikura realize that he's romancing a mannequin (Maname Sugata)? "Chanson d'automne" and "Le ciel est par-dessus le toit" by Paul Verlaine get quoted. The 1973 Japan National Railways strike, Bacchus (Roman god) and "Pavane pour une infante défunte" by Maurice Ravel get mentioned.)
CHAPTER 2: The Woman and the Dog (Will Barbara be able to make Mikura realize that he's romancing the Afghan Hound (Sonya) of Rumi Nagahama (Hiroyuki Yotsuya's fiancé)? The Box Man by Kobo Abe, Guillaume Apollinaire and Franz Kafka get mentioned.)
CHAPTER 3: The Black Plaza (Mikura follows Barbara to an underground/angura theatre performance. Barbara has been secretly supporting the troupe with Mikura's royalty payments. Mikura decides to be part of the play... will he bring the house down? Tezuka pokes fun at his own name: Osamushi = ground beetle. Frédéric Chopin and René Clément get mentioned.)
CHAPTER 4: The Secret (Ito City. Mikura decides to visit Hiroko Katagai, a housewife that has been sending him fan letters. Hiroko's husband informs Mikura that his spouse passed away six months ago. Could Katagai's daughter, Ako be the one behind the letters? "The Power of Darkness" by Leo Tolstoy and "Too much and too little wine" by Blaise Pascal gets quoted. Shusaku Endo and Jean Cocteau get mentioned.)
CHAPTER 5: The Demon on the Dune (Mikura relives his Waseda University days, when he was still an inexperienced scribe, by taking a ferry trip from Shibaura to Izu Oshima Island. What did Mikura bury 13 years ago on Mount Mihara? "It is only the last love of a woman that can satisfy the first love of a man" from La Duchesse de Langeais by Balzac gets quoted.)
CHAPTER 6: The Black Sinner (Controversial political figure and formerly renowned Francophone writer, Swanda Russalka is Mikura's guest. Russalka knows Barbara, he's the one who brought her to Japan. Russalka reveals to Mikura that Barbara is a muse and that she abandoned him. Will Russalka be able to escape the hitmen from his native country who are trying to silence his voice? Barbara suggests they find shelter at her mother's antique shop in Kabukicho. Mnemosyne gives an authentic Picasso to Mikura. The Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Claude Monet and Dionysus/Bacchus (Mnemosyne's husband!) get mentioned. We espy the Tokyo Monorail Haneda Airport Line. Fusées by Charles Baudelaire gets quoted.)
CHAPTER 7: Chain The Wolf Down (Mikura is writing a new novel (Chain The Wolf Down) based on Barbara. A face reading fortune teller (advertising the I Ching Hexagram 32) urges Mikura not to kill his male protagonist (Akira Hikami who is based on Russalka) at the end of his upcoming novel. Mikura must change the plot or he will surely die. Is Mikura unwittingly writing about his own future? Carmen by Prosper Mérimée and Alexander Pushkin get mentioned.)
CHAPTER 8: The Replica (Chain The Wolf Down is now a best-seller! Barbara finds Mikura a substitute/manager/double. Will Kanako Kai (the daughter of Mikura's publisher/the president of Kai Books) discover that she's dating a doppelgänger? Ginza district, Japan Sinks by Sakyo Komatsu, Nikka Whisky, personal name stamps/hanko, Tohoku Broadcasting Company and NHK Japan Broadcasting Corporation get mentioned.)
CHAPTER 9: A World of Madness (We start with a Salvador Dali Dream Sequence from Spellbound (1945) homage. Speaker of the House of Representatives, Gonpachiro Satomi and his daughter, Shigako pay Mikura a visit. Mr. Satomi would like Mikura to head his election committee for the upcoming Tokyo gubernatorial election. Barbara has just been arrested for assault, her 18th time at the Ueno Police Station. Shigako and Barbara fight over Mikura. Will Mikura set fire to The National Museum of Western Art? Ernest Hemingway, Takoyaki snacks and Roppongi district get mentioned. We espy the Hijiri Bridge in Ochanomizu and the Kanda River. Friedrich Nietzsche's "the disease called man" gets quoted. Alfred Hitchcock appears... or does he?)
CHAPTER 10: Voodoo (Mikura decides to endorse Gonpachiro Satomi for governor. A mysterious stroke strikes down Mr. Satomi. Mikura finds a Voodoo doll of Mr. Satomi with pins stuck into it. Barbara buys a new dress and exposes her true self to Mikura. Barbara professes her love to Mikura, he does the same. Mr. Satomi wants Mikura to run for governor in his place. Mikura bones up on Voodoo & Black Magic. Could Barbara be a witch? Did she live hundreds of years? Is Mikura under her spell? Is she the one making dolls? Is she trying to hamper Mikura's political ambitions? Is she to blame for Composer Michitomo Shido's accident? Shintaro Ishihara, The House of Councillors of Japan, "Witchcraft and Black Magic" by Peter Haining and illustrated by Jan Parker, Nairobi (Capital of Kenya), The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Scotland, Boston (Massachusetts), Louise Huebner, "A most certain, strange and true discovery of a VVitch", Sybil Leek, "Clair de Lune" by Claude Debussy, Henry III of France and the 1941 "hex party" in the Maryland woods get mentioned.)
CHAPTER 11: The Black Mass (Mikura starts working on his next novel (The Scarlet Thorn/Barb). Barbara wants to have a black mass wedding... but Mikura can only bring one witness (Takayasu Tsutsui. An homage to Yasutaka Tsutsui (Paprika)). Mr. Abe, the matchmaker/soothsayer, brings the mambo marriage vows, Mikura signs them in blood. Mikura tells his publisher about the wedding. The police raid the wedding ceremony! Who could have squealed to the authorities? Kai Books declines to publish The Scarlet Thorn. Is Mikura ruined? Who is Dolmen and why is she a twin of Barbara? Shinto weddings, a blood covenant, the Seirankai/Blue Storm Society, Boso Peninsula, Hakone, Japan Sinks by Sakyo Komatsu, Asmodeus from Dictionnaire Infernal by Jacques Collin de Plancy and illustrated by Louis Le Breton (engraved by M. Jarrault) and Umeda Station in Osaka get mentioned. Sagesse and "Il Pleure Dans Mon Coeur" by Paul Verlaine get quoted.)
CHAPTER 12: Return (Six years have passed already. Mikura is now married to Shigako Satomi, they have a child. The bills are piling up. With his muse gone, so is Mikura's inspiration. Now working for a tabloid to support his family, Mikura encounters Dolmen once again. Mikura decides to leave his wife to be with Dolmen. How will Mikura handle rejection? Who is sending Voodoo dolls to Mikura? Has Mikura lost touch with reality? Mikura agrees to a psychiatric evaluation. Mnemosyne wants Mikura to see someone. Tama/Rokugo River, Shinagawa City, Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz, Yukio Mishima and Yasunari Kawabata get mentioned.)
CHAPTER 13: Verdict (Mnemosyne brings Mikura to see a patient at the mental hospital, Shaman/Dr. Indo Tachiba... the President of the Japanese branch of the Society of the Great Mother Goddess. Tachiba scolds Mikura. Mikura slips away to follow Mnemosyne who is going back to her shop and her brainwiped daughter. Mikura wants Barbara to marry him again. Will the now cursed Mikura be allowed to escape the labyrinthine sewers of Tokyo with his muse? Will Barbara ever regain her memory? Will Mikura be remembered after his death? How many artist did Barbara ruin? Will Barbara's attempt to murder Mikura backfire? Martell Cognac, the sewers of Paris, Hoichi the Earless from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn, Kofun tombs and Chidorigafuchi Park get mentioned.)
CHAPTER 14: Pathos in the Mist (Mikura & Barbara are wanted for armed robbery. Tsutsui lends the fugitives his cabin in the Kyushu Mountains. Tsutsui suggests to Mikura that he should write one more novel. Mikura steals food to survive. Has Barbara passed away from her injuries? Is Barbara only under a witch's curse? Is Barbara still trying to murder Mikura? Can Mikura escape the thick fog that is confining him? Mikura decides to write, to leave something behind. Will Mikura be shown mercy by Mnemosyne or will he be immolated for his sins? The Aso Caldera, The Exorcist (1973), The prophecies of Nostradamus by Ben Goto, Snow White by the Brothers Grimm, the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 accident, Shukan Bunshun and Shukan Shincho get mentioned.)
CHAPTER 15: Ever After (The Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park. Tomoko Yonezu vandalizes the Mona Lisa and is arrested. A reporter interviews Leiji Matsumoto (Captain Harlock/Albator) about the nature of art. Mnemosyne shows the reporter the never before seen lower half of the Mona Lisa painting (a donation from Leonardo da Vinci himself). Matsumoto recognizes Barbara. Mnemosyne mentions that Mikura's mind has been wiped clean and that he has disappeared. Matsumoto has found Mikura's last manuscript, his unfinished I-novel: Barbara. Will it be published? Will it be a massive hit? Toshusai Sharaku gets mentioned.)
What I did like:
Tezuka's firstborn son, Makoto (Macoto Tezka) adapted his father's manga into a live-action movie (Tezuka's Barbara) in 2019.
Go Nagai/Dynamic Planning did their own manga version of Barbara to commemorate the film.
Mnemosyne is constantly cosplaying as the Venus of Willendorf.
Inspired by Shinji Nagashima's Futen manga stories and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
No Walt Disney inspired characters appear.
The gekiga style.
An overheated Barbara fans herself with a copy of Big Comic magazine published by Shogakukan. Barbara was first serialized in Big Comic.
TezuComi featured 2 stories based on Barbara: "Doppelgänger" by Victor Santos & Belen Ortega and "Barbara" by Ishida Atsuko.
A Barbara look-alike can be seen on the cover of the Captain Harlock Christmas Special (1991).
Barbara appears four times in the Black Jack manga (Chapters 106: Urashima, 173: Hot Night, 201: Helping Each Other and 217: A Cholera Scare).
Barbara also appears in the Black Jack anime (Season 1, Episode 26 - Cholera Scare).
Dr. Aaron Aikman (Edge of Spider-Verse (2014) #3)'s look is based on Mikura Yosuke.
I give it a 9/10. Craving weirdness, esotericism and vertigo? This is the phantasmagorical, turbulent Möbius strip ride to insanity that you are looking for. Highly recommended!
