372 pages
English language
Published Jan. 3, 2011 by Drawn & Quarterly.
Souin Gyokusai seyo! is a "semi-autobiographical account of the desperate final weeks of a Japanese infantry unit at the end of World War II." Mizuki drew from his own experiences as a soldier in that war to depict the horrors of battle.
On an island at the end of 1943, Japanese soldiers are obliged to commit suicide in order to save the honor of their country.
(Source: ANN, bdangouleme.com)
Japanese soldiers at the end of World War II die pointlessly in a series of pointless battles, culminating in a suicide attack that exists for no purpose other than the honor of the Japanese military.
Despite the bleak and depressing material, this is a compulsively readable comic.
An interest over entertaining read, Onward Towards our Noble Deaths is a fictionalized recollection of Shigeru Mizuki's time in the Imperial Army during WW II. I assume that the hierarchy chart, character list, and definition of jargon are all helpful in helping people to immerse themselves into the story. Unfortunately for myself I found it all a bit too overwhelming and immediately checked out. Between the stressful times we are finding ourselves in and my own personal taste in comics that does not generally lean this way, I find it hard to blame the book for my lack of ability to connect with this story.
Otherwise, the art is an interesting contrast of cartoony dialog scenes and more realistic setting shots. The dark humour generally works, minus the beginning of the story when the target was the comfort women who were leaving. That really went over the line for me …
An interest over entertaining read, Onward Towards our Noble Deaths is a fictionalized recollection of Shigeru Mizuki's time in the Imperial Army during WW II. I assume that the hierarchy chart, character list, and definition of jargon are all helpful in helping people to immerse themselves into the story. Unfortunately for myself I found it all a bit too overwhelming and immediately checked out. Between the stressful times we are finding ourselves in and my own personal taste in comics that does not generally lean this way, I find it hard to blame the book for my lack of ability to connect with this story.
Otherwise, the art is an interesting contrast of cartoony dialog scenes and more realistic setting shots. The dark humour generally works, minus the beginning of the story when the target was the comfort women who were leaving. That really went over the line for me personally. While Shigeru Mizuki has the tone of many classic anti-war novels, he lacks any true critique of hierarchy and can only address things that fall within the realm of the absurdity of war.
