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There are many issues explored throughout the story, most especially gender identity, societal status, family ties, and the nature of belonging. It sets out to explore the city, but is quickly spotted by Duke Red, at which point a plot is set in motion to lure Michi back to its creator and original purpose. The android, dubbed Michi by its creator, is raised in secret and soon longs to experience the outside world. Upon its completion, however, the scientist sets his laboratory ablaze and whisks the android away to his home, feigning its destruction. A brilliant scientist is held hostage by the villainous Duke Red and forced to engineer a super-human weapon - a sexless automaton possessing godlike strength, flight capabilities, and the ability to switch gender at will.

Though often lauded as Tezuka's most significant contribution to the SF genre, I found "Metropolis" to be largely hit-and-miss. I couldn't get myself to empathize, care about or laugh at any of the cartoonized absurdist, chaotic humanity throughout the story and even though it's packaged as a more serious SF epic, the only ending I was crying about was that I couldn't believe I had finally finished it. It's not surprising in this next evolutionary stage of manga, from it's 'junky kids' book' roots, the dialogue in Metropolis continues to flow like Scooby Doo! banter with the adults and children alike carrying out elementary hijinks alongside everyone's bad baby temperament (but backdropped with some elements of technology).

This was Ikuei Publishing Company's attempt at releasing less "junky kids' books" and wanting to release more "respectable-looking, 'real' books" so they propositioned Tezuka to create an epic, full-length science-fiction novel for them, playing with science fiction elements as one of the first of its kind in manga form. The futuristic setting and story premise were groundbreaking for the time and filled with allegories of the Cold War, some wry observations and some completely low blow humor. Of course, I have seen the Metropolis anime and know the storyline already, but without that foundation and liking Tezuka's art, I definitely wouldn't have cared enough to push myself past the first 50 pages of this. Alabaster, Don Dracula, The Lost World adaptation, etc. I don't know why I always forget how cringey/clunky and banally melodramatic half of Tezuka's manga stories are -albeit not for the targeted shonen audience- i.e.