was a manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 magazine started in January 1967 by Osamu Tezuka

Osamu Tezuka

was a Japanese cartoonist, manga artist, animator, producer, activist and medical doctor, although he never practiced medicine. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion and Black Jack...

. It was started in response to the success of Garo

Garo (magazine)

was a monthly manga anthology magazine in Japan, founded in 1964 by Katsuichi Nagai. It specialized in alternative and avant-garde manga.-History:...

(which at that time was around its highest circulation), and as a way for Tezuka and other artists to showcase more avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 and experimental works in manga. The first seven stories of Phoenix

Phoenix (manga)

is a manga series by Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka considered Phoenix his "life's work"; it consists of 12 books, each of which tells a separate, self-contained story and takes place in a different era. The plots go back and forth from the remote future to prehistoric times. The cycle remains unfinished...

were the most famous work to be published from this anthology before it went under in 1972. In addition, the famous feminist cartoonist Murasaki Yamada

Murasaki Yamada

, born as Mitsuko Shiratori, was a Japanese feminist essayist, manga artist, and poet. She was associated with Garo. Frederik L. Schodt regarded her work as particularly important because, although there is a culture of girl's manga, Yamada's work has a feminist message, which is rare in girls' manga...

got her start working for this anthology.