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Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths
Paperback, 368, Drawn and Quarterly, List Price: $24.95 | purchase
NPR Summary
From one of Japan's most famous cartoonists comes the semiautobiographical account of the final weeks of a Japanese infantry unit at the end of WorldWar II. Mizuki was a soldier himself and draws from personal experiences of a demoralizing war.
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NPR stories about Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths
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When he was 21, Shigeru Mizuki was drafted into the Japanese Imperial Army and sent to Papua New Guinea, site of one of the fiercest battles of the Pacific campaign. When his unit was completely wiped out by Australian forces, Mizuki heroically struggled back to base, only to be reprimanded by his superiors for surviving. This classic 1973 manga, based on Mizuki's wartime experiences, explores with crystalline irony the absurdities of life during wartime. The moon-faced Japanese... more
—Dan Kois
Excerpt: 'Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths'
December 20, 2011 Read an excerpt from Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths by Shigeru Mizuki.
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