Indeed, commanding officers prove even more ferocious than the wild unknown of Papua New Guinea. Mizuki's fanciful characters must make do against a photo-realistic backdrop teeming with tropical life that remains inhospitable. The desperation and moral depravity on display is devastating. This deeply personal and landmark anti-war work could only have been made by a pacifist. Inspired by Eisner Award-winning author Shigeru Mizuki's own mandatory tour of duty as an active combatant in the Imperial Japanese Army, Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths portrays a flailing infantry unit on its last legs near the end of the Second World War. The alternative is certain execution as a consequence of survival. A platoon of soldiers is ordered into battle. The book that brought pre-eminent Manga-ka Shigeru Mizuki to the English-speaking world Translated from the Japanese by Jocelyne Allen.Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths by Shigeru Mizuki, translated by Zack Davisson / ISBN 9781770466302 / 372-page paperback published by Drawn & Quarterly 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.
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