ONWARD TOWARDS OUR NOBLE DEATHS

ONWARD TOWARDS OUR NOBLE DEATHS SHIGERU MIZUKI

A landmark publishing event of one of Japan’s most famous cartoonists 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 is his first book to be translated into English and is a semiautobiographical account of the desperate final weeks of a Japanese infantry unit at the end of WorldWar II. The soldiers are told that they must go into battle and die for the honor of their country, with certain execution facing them if they return alive. 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. 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 D+Q) 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 KodanshaManga 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.

SHIGERU MIZUKI

Shigeru Mizuki (1922-2015) was one of Japan's most respected artists and a forefather of manga. He invented the yokai genre with GeGeGe no Kitaro and founded the gekiga—dramatic manga— movement with autobiographical wartime accounts such as Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths. He received the Kodansha Manga Award, the Eisner Award, and the Angouleme Award, as well as the Shiju Hosho Medal of Honor and the Order of the Rising Sun. Shigeru Mizuki was a specialist in stories of yokai. As a member of the Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology, he traveled to sixty countries around the world to engage in fieldwork on the spirits of different cultures. He has been published in Japan, South Korea, France, Spain, Taiwan, and Italy.