![]() Mizuki was one of the first manga artists-really one of the first contemporary comics artists worldwide-to use the medium to discuss “adult” topics on this scale. This is a 50th-anniversary reprint of a work only first translated into English in 2011. ![]() Throughout the book, they sing lines from a song called the “Prostitute’s Lament” popular among Japanese troops at the time: “Why am I stuck working this shitty job/no way out/all for my parents.” Hunger, malaria, and dying a virgin are the topics that preoccupy these men-boys, really. ![]() The concerns of Japan’s political establishment are never discussed, and the “clash of civilizations” discourse that dominates documentaries on the war are non-existent. Throughout Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, “a reason” is always out of reach. This is during Japan’s New Guinea campaign in 1943, which in real life took the lives of over 200,000 Japanese soldiers by the end of World War II. Such nationalist overtures, however, don’t quell the fear and hopelessness of the rank and file. Earlier, the lieutenant-colonel tries to inspire the troops by reminding them of Dai-Nanko, a 14th-century samurai who sacrificed his life on behalf of the Emperor. “We’re prob’ly going for a reason,” a private depicted in Shigeru Mizuki’s legendary war manga Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths says as his platoon is transferred from one part of New Britain (an island in Papua New Guinea) to another. ![]()
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