As a birthday indulgence in 2006, I got myself a pricy English translation of Kaoru Kurotani's manga-style life-story of billionaire financier George Soros. It boasts the appropriately hagiographic subititle "An Illustrated Biography of the World's Most Powerful Investor", as if he was some larger-than-life Jack Kirby creation from the Silver Age, leaping off the page in glorious Zipotone and four-colored imagination.

In fact, Soros is quite a character, in his own right. Most ordinary folks know him as the guy who profited heavily off speculative investments during the British economic slump in the early 90s, as well as the Asian Financial Crisis, later in the decade. As such, it's easy to stereotype him as a predatory fat-cat, or at least a self-interested businessman taking advantage of the fickle marketplace.

However, if Kaoru's manga is any indication, Soros fancies himself as a self-appointed enlightened world-changer, in the vein of Professor X or Tony Stark, using his vast resources towards "under-writing democracy" in developing nations. Soros is depicted as a frustrated philosopher, who trained under Karl Popper; his long-term goal is to make real The Open Society envisioned by his mentor. With this end in mind, he set up offices of the Open Society Foundations in countries with faltering dictatorships, beginning with his native Hungary. Under the nose of a fascist government, he pumped a small yearly infusion of $3 million into the economy, concentrating on things like accessible photocopiers and international study grants for local scientists -- tools for promoting freedom of expression and job opportunities. This all culminates in a moment of humble pride for Soros' manga-self, as he enthuses:

"I merely provided assistance. It was the people of Hungary who took the necessary risks to bring about change … It was a cheap price to pay to spread freedom."

Meanwhile, Soros continues to apply his fascination with the scientific method to his investment practices, re-naming his personal fund the Quantum Fund, in reference to the principle of uncertainty at the heart of particle physics. Kaoru's manga takes generous creative license to dramatize this point, giving us a half-page epiphany panel of Soros in college, announcing:

"I will apply my theories to the marketplace. The world will be my laboratory."

Admittedly, I have a difficult time understanding the nitty-gritty of arbitrage, mutual funds, and stock prices. And frankly, if you read Kaoru's manga hoping to understand these specialized investment concepts, you're looking in the wrong place. Soros himself is the first to admit that finance is closer to alchemy than a hard science, a view that is reflected in the title of his most famous book. Kaoru, as usual, takes it a step further, as manga-Soros declares: 

"The chaos of the markets fascinates me. It is within that chaos that money can be made."

For all the ridiculous over-simplification and hyperbolic dialog, the book recognizes that Soros' genius also benefited from world events and political circumstances. His fortune is affected in various ways by epoch-defining events like the U.S. oil crisis of the 70s, the end of the Cold War, and the formation of the European Union.

Nevertheless, this is still very much one man's life history. So Kaoru includes the usual kitchen-sink details of how Soros' obsession with his business leads to the collapse of his personal life at home.

Considerably more interesting are the peeks into his research methods. A firm believer in eclectic approaches to generating income, his sources are characterized as ridiculously diverse. At one point, a delivery man reaches his office, bearing copies of titles like "Report on Hair Growth Treatments", "Understanding the Properties of Mint", and "Fertilizers Weekly", much to the bemusement of his secretary. Soros' response, delivered with po-faced seriousness, is worthy of a Warren Ellis character:

"It's not just a matter of grasping company profits and sales. We use all these publications to see how society, economics, and politics will determine a company's future."

This odd mix of pot-boiler storytelling and grandiose theoretical overtones may not have been what Kaoru originally intended -- perhaps it doesn't sound quite so bombastic in the original Japanese, who knows? But as it stands, the book succeeds at presenting the various aspects of Soros' public persona: self-styled investment philosopher, visionary do-gooder, and inscrutable financial wizard (in more than one sense of the word).

layout adapted from NeoThemes