Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths by Shigeru Mizuki

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths (Soin Gyokusai Seyo!) first appeared in 1973, and was inspired by Mizuki's unintentional reunion with his commanding officer, which led him back to Rabaul after a 26-year absence. Possibly his most significant personal loss, though, is one immediately apparent from photographs of the man himself-the loss of his left arm. At the age of 20 he was drafted into the Japanese army and stationed at Rabaul, on New Britain in Papua New Guinea, where he survived several near-collisions with death. It is doubtful that 89-year-old cartoonist Shigeru Mizuki will ever forget his war time experiences, either. “Only one word I ever learned in Japanese.” He paused. “Japanese, huh,” he said quietly, looking away from me.

In fact, I told my mild-mannered Catholic grandfather, a man who loved radios and computers and science fiction novels, I was thinking about learning Japanese. At the time I was interested in Japanese console role-playing games, and increasingly frustrated with how few games actually made it into English translation. Translated from the Japanese by Jocelyne Allen.When I was thirteen I spent a week with my grandparents at their house in New Jersey. His hometown of Sakaiminato honored him with the Shigeru Mizuki Road, a street in his town decorated with bronze statues of his Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro characters and the Shigeru Mizuki International Cultural Center.

Mizuki is the recipient of many awards including Best Album award for his book NonNonBa (published in 2012 by Drawn & Quarterly) and Heritage Essential award for Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, at the Angouleme International Comics Festival, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Special Award, Kyokujitsu Sho Decoration, Shiju Hosho Decoration and the Kodansha Manga Award. Currently in Japan, the life of Mizuki and his wife has been made into an extremely popular television drama that airs daily. Mizuki's list of accolades and achievements is long and detailed. Mizuki was a soldier himself (he was severely injured and lost an arm) and uses his experiences to convey the devastating consequences and moral depravity of the war. The soldiers are instructed that they must go into battle and die for the honor of their country, with certain execution facing them if they return alive.

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths is his first book to be translated into English and is a semi-autobiographical account of the desperate final weeks of a Japanese infantry unit at the end of World War Two. 'A LANDMARK PUBLISHING EVENT OF ONE OF JAPAN'S MOST FAMOUS CARTOONISTS Shigeru Mizuki is the preeminent figure of gekiga/manga and one of the most famous working cartoonists in Japan today - a true living legend.

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths by Shigeru Mizuki