Rock (manga)

Rock Holmes
Rock in the 1966 manga "Vampire"
Created by	Osamu Tezuka

Rock (known in some series as Rokuro Makube a.k.a. Rock Macbeth or Rock Holmes (ロック・ホーム, Rokku Hōmu^?)) is a recurrent major character in most of Osamu Tezuka's manga series, and he is an important part of Osamu Tezuka's Star System. As all of Tezuka's main characters he is seen repeatedly in different works but differs as the character with the most various and changing roles from both hero and antihero.

Rock (sometimes spelled Roc) mainly appears as a young man with shiny dark hair and blue eyes. His appearance stays relatively the same, with hair that retains its style across works, but that often changes colour. He first appeared in the manga The Moony Man and later in the series Detective Boy Rock Holmes, as a child detective. (His name and traits where then based on Sherlock Holmes). Developing later into a more villainous character, his name changed into Rock Macbeth (Makube) as both his character and backstory where based on the famous antagonist of the Tragedy of Macbeth. He is later seen wearing dark sunglasses which, together with his ability to be a master of disguise, became one of his main trademarks.

Appearing often as both a hero and antihero he is mainly portrayed as a strong, determined and charismatic leader whose both personality and beliefs stand as opposition to Tezuka's main protagonists Black Jack and Astro Boy.

Already during his early roles as a good character his approach and ideas where more dark and harsh than the optimistic views of his friends Kenichi, Astro Boy and Black Jack. But in Tezuka's original works (such as Adventures of Rock and Phoenix) his solutions where also portrayed as the more realistic and effective ones, while Astro Boy's striving towards an idealistic approach could never give an ultimate solution to the main problem of all Tezuka's works: war between two races or types (mostly humans vs. robots, other creatures or ugly vs. the beautiful).