Download Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths manga by S. Mizuki (.CBR)

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths manga by Shigeru Mizuki; adapted by Jocelyne Allen
Requirements: CBR Reader, 361 MB.
Overview: Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths chronicles the last days of a doomed unit of the Japanese Imperial Army in the last days of World War II. In an afterword, Shigeru Mizuki describes the story as "90 percent fact," and because it is drawn from his own experiences in a very similar unit, it is at heart 100 percent true. Like Maruyama, the main character in the book, Mizuki was an enlisted man in a unit in Raibaul, which is now part of Papua New Guinea, and like Maruyama, he lost all his army buddies in the war.

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths manga

Shigeru Mizuki

Jocelyne Allen

Drawn & Quarterly, 2011.

Mizuki’s list of accolades and achievements is long and detailed. In Japan, the life of Mizuki and his wife has been made into an extremely popular television drama that airs daily. Mizuki is the recipient of many awards, including the Best AlbumAward for his book NonNonBa (to be published in 2012 by Drawn & Quarterly) and the Heritage Essential Award for Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Special Award, the Kyokujitsu Sho Decoration, the Shiju Hosho Decoration, and the Kodansha Manga Award. His hometown of Sakaiminato honored him with Shigeru Mizuki Road—a street decorated with bronze statues of his Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro characters—and the Shigeru Mizuki International Cultural Center.

A Story That Anyone Can Understand

Brigid Alverson on June 20, 2011.

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths chronicles the last days of a doomed unit of the Japanese Imperial Army in the last days of World War II. In an afterword, Shigeru Mizuki describes the story as "90 percent fact," and because it is drawn from his own experiences in a very similar unit, it is at heart 100 percent true. Like Maruyama, the main character in the book, Mizuki was an enlisted man in a unit in Raibaul, which is now part of Papua New Guinea, and like Maruyama, he lost all his army buddies in the war.

The first half of the book is a tale of steadily increasing misery; The soldiers are poorly fed, suffering from untreated diseases, and forced to work in dangerous conditions. Enlisted men were regarded as less than human by the Japanese army brass, who refer to them as "worms." Nonetheless, their humanity shines through in their vastly different personalities, their memories of home, and their humor. Even the cruel Sergeant Honda, who dispenses blows as casually as orders, shows rare empathy when he gives his boot to Maruyama (who lost his in a gross but funny incident involving a latrine and a rice bucket) and declares his intention to go barefoot. The soldiers may be less than human to their commanders, but they are very much alive to the reader–which makes it so terrible when we see them die horribly, one by one, from jungle diseases, accidents, or just plain stupidity.

As the book progresses, the enemy closes in, and the Japanese commander, Tadokoro, makes the decision that the unit must hurl itself against the Allies in one last suicide charge. This is not the only option, or even the best one–the charge will buy the soldiers behind them a few days at most, while Tadokoro’s staff argues that if they retreat to the mountains and fight guerilla-style, they can hold off the enemy for months. Tadokoro is convinced that it is nobler to face the enemy directly and die in battle, and he is determined to lead his soldiers to this noble death.

What follows is not what was expected: A portion of the unit survives the attack, presenting a problem for their commanders in the rear (who opposed a suicide charge to begin with). The soldiers’ deaths have already been announced; Their nobility has been celebrated. The conversations that follow are worthy of the finest wartime satire, as the commanding officers debate whether to send the men back to their deaths or spare the useless carnage. Even the superior officers have their doubts, especially when it comes to compelling individual soldiers to commit suicide, but in the end, the Japanese sense of honor wins out over human empathy.

Mizuki’s style is rather odd and a bit jarring at first: He draws the soldiers as simple, cartoonlike caricatures and lavishes a great deal of detail on the backgrounds, rendering the battleground scenes with almost photographic detail. While this is a bit jarring at first, the soldiers’ cartoony faces convey their personalities quickly to the reader. Mizuki does not spare the reader the horrors of war; deaths and injuries are depicted in gruesome detail, and when, at the end, a gravely wounded Maruyama suddenly has a realistic face, the effect is horrific.

The book includes a foreword by scholar Frederick Schodt, an afterword by Mizuki, an interview with Mizuki, and extensive translators’ notes, all of which help the reader place the story in its proper context and understand some of the cultural nuances (such as the songs the soldiers sing during the worst of times). These are all helpful, but at its essence, Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths is a story that anyone can understand, a story of both the nobility of human spirit and the absurdity of war.

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, Posted in Manga Reviews on May 16, 2011 by Ed Sizemore.

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths is the semi-autobiographical story (in the afterward, Mizuki tells us 90% of it is true) of Japanese soldiers stationed on New Britain Island in the Papua New Guinean Archipelago during Word War II. Mizuki’s stand-in is Private Second Class Maruyama. Life on the tropical island is hard for the Japanese soldiers. They battle hunger, malaria, abusive squad leaders, and finally US fighting forces.

One thing that stands out when reading Japanese experiences of World War II is how hungry everyone is. In Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies, we see the civilian population starving and people dying of malnutrition. Mizuki tells us that soldiers faired no better. Maruyama is living off of a cup of rice a day, so the soldiers become adept at harvesting wild fruits and vegetables. Thankfully, New Britain is rich in plant life, and they’re able to gather bananas, papaya, and potatoes. I’m amazed the Japanese were able to hold out as long as they did in the war, given the severe food shortages they were experiencing. It’s also a testament to humanity’s ability to survive.

Next, I was shocked by the level of abuse Maruyama and his fellow rookies suffer. The squad leader tells them, “New recruits are like tatami mats: the more you beat them, the better they are.” (Page 68) True to his word, every night he lines up the new recruits and smacks them. When a guy breaks his arm, the squad beats him before sending him off to the doctor. Mizuki made my experiences in Naval boot camp seem like a lazy Sunday walk in the park compared to the daily reality he faced.

I’m worried that Americans are going to find a lot of this book very familiar. First, the scenes of the soldiers talking about how pointless the war is, and the terrible living conditions in particular, reminded me of Platoon. The scenes exposing the mindless bureaucracy of the army are similar to episodes of M.A.S.H. There’s been no shortage of war stories with an anti-war message in post-Vietnam America.

Second, the noble death referred to in the title is a suicide charge Major Tadokoro commands for the battalion. Some of the soldiers had the audacity to actually survive. When the General in charge of the region hears about it, he orders the surviving officers be tried for cowardice. Movie buffs are going to recognize a very similar scenario from Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory. That film was based on the true story of a French Army unit in World War I. It’s eerie to see that kind of military insanity carried out again 30 years later in the other half of the world.

This isn’t to say that Mizuki hasn’t written a wonderful book. I’m just worried that Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths is going to be lost in the sea of anti-war writings already present in America, when the real value of Mizuki’s book is to show us the human faces on the other side of the battlefield. The Japanese have doubts and fears about war, too. By the end, many of the Japanese soldiers were acutely aware they were fighting a losing battle, but they had no way out. The book puts to shame the horrendous propaganda and stereotypes we used during World War II.

Mizuki’s art can be a bit of a shock. (Fred Schodt talks about it briefly in his introduction to the book.) Mizuki chose to use highly detailed and realistic backgrounds, while keeping the characters very cartoony looking. Some people are going to be put off by the juxtaposition. I found after a couple of pages, I didn’t notice the difference. Considering some of the grim events depicted in the book, keeping the characters less realistic is a wise choice. It helps establish an emotional distance for the reader. Also, things can get pretty bizarre at times; the cartoony-looking characters can help the reader keep a sense of humor about it all.

There is a small translation error in regards to Tadokoro’s rank. At the beginning of the book, he is called a Lieutenant Colonel, and later in the book, he is referred to as Major. That would mean that he had been demoted, but his rank insignia shows him to be a Major from beginning to end. Otherwise, it’s a beautiful translation that is a delight to read.

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths should be required World War II reading alongside works like Maus and Barefoot Gen. Anyone who picks up this book will be enriched by the experience. Mizuki has provided us an honest look from the Japanese soldier’s perspective of the war. The book is as complex as the situations and the people it depicts. It’s a taste of what a great artist Mizuki is. Let’s hope we will get to feast on the rest of his works.

The Japanese side of World War Two, in manga form, Reviewed by DJ Joe Sixpack on July 16, 2011.

Originally published in 1973, this fictionalized comicbook memoir of the Japanese Pacific campaigns of World War Two recounts the battle over the island of New Britain, near New Zealand. Pioneering manga artist Shigeru Mizuki was a combat veteran of the Southern Pacific campaign, and like many Japanese in the post-war era he fervently rejected the intense militarism that led to Japan’s disastrous participation in WWII and embraced the nation’s newfound postwar pacifism. As such, this lengthy manga portrays the Japanese army as doomed, ineffectual and led by officers who were universally bigoted and inhumane. The presentation is perhaps a bit too one-sided: the American forces appear as an unstoppable, ominous presence against which the apparently bumbling Japanese military has no meaningful defense. While it is true the Pacific war led Japan to ruin, and many huge strategic errors were made that cost them unnecessary losses, it is not an entirely honest portrayal to show the Japanese army as so wimpy and impotent: despite losing the war, they certainly were capable opponents.

Nonetheless, this is a fascinating counterbalance to the now-familiar narrative in the West, of the hard-fought battles in the tropics, and shows that the Allied soldiers hardly had a monopoly on fear and dread as the battles closed in around them. Finally American audiences have a chance to see the other side of the story, and to appreciate the shared humanity of "the other side," who are frequently demonized in American books and films. Equally important is the exposure of the violence and rigid chauvinism of the Japanese military system; this historical openness helped Japan reevaluate its national character and is echoed in later manga works such as "Barefoot Gen" and "Grave Of The Fireflies." However, in pruning out the emotional darkness and fighting capability of the Japanese troops, in presenting all the foot soldiers as hapless victims of war rather than active participants, driven by hate and fear (as were the Americans), Mizuki introduces an element of whitewashing and denial in an otherwise laudable document. Certainly worth reading, but it should be approached with healthy skepticism.
(Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain book reviews)

About:

Born on March 8, 1922, in Sakaiminato, Tottori, Shigeru Mizuki is a specialist in stories of yokai and is considered a master of the genre.He is a member of the Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology and has traveled to more than sixty countries to engage in fieldwork on the yokai and spirits of different cultures. He has been published in Japan, South Korea, France, Spain, Taiwan, and Italy.

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