Comparing Nintendo to Tezuka is frankly going a little far. Tezuka was an artist, whereas Nintendo is a corporation, and these things have real consequences. For Tezuka, the art was an end in itself; for Nintendo, as with all corporations, the art is a means to an end (namely, making money).

But in terms of trying to turn an art form that had previously been looked down on into a valued medium capable of expressing many genres -in other words, what they're doing as opposed to what they want- I can see the parallels. It does make me wonder when we'll see Nintendo releasing porn, though; Tezuka even did a few of those.

Would it be more apt to compare Miyamoto to Tezuka, then?

You might be on to something with the Miyamoto-Tezuka thing, though I'm more inclined to compare Miyamoto to Miyazaki. The person I'd compare to Tezuka is Gunpei Yokoi.

1. Manga has hundreds of millions in revenue from US sales alone, which kind of indicates they do.

2. That isn't really the point I'm making. Read the first three paragraphs of the OP again.

Oooo. That's tough, though, and I'd argue that Miyamoto is more influential than Yokoi, which is really what I was aiming for in my comparison. Unless you feel Miyazaki's influence is that large (I admit I wouldn't know)

LordTheNightKnight, I see your point. It's not the first time it's been made, but it's the first time I've ever seen it connected to Tezuka. Any comparison to Tezuka is going to be unfair however, because Tezuka is my top idol. No man, group, company or country will ever accomplish anything as great as what he did.

All right

That may be slightly unreasonable

Yokoi was Miyamoto's mentor, and responsible for helping him produce Donkey Kong, as well as leading his own team which made the Game Boy, the Game & Watch, the D-Pad, R.O.B., Super Mario Land, Balloon Fight, Metroid, Kid Icarus, and a laundry list of early Nintendo achievements that dwarfs anybody.

Miyamoto is Edison. Yokoi was Da Vinci.

The D-Pad was the most innovative controller revolution of the 1980s, as the analog stick was for the 1990s, and motion sensing and IR pointing are for the 2000s. But I'd argue that the D-Pad was the most important, because it was the one to finally replace the wonky joysticks of arcade machines and Ataris.

Never even heard of Manga

Yes. It is unreasonable. It's just my opinion.

But look at what he did. He basically created an artform that now permeats the culture of his home country, and is slowly spreading through the world. And he not only lay the foundations, he practically built the house as well. His body of works is unparalleled, both in size and quality (all I've read is insanely good).

I'm a Tezuka-fanboy.