Showa 1926-1939 – A History of Japan – Shigeru Mizuki
Showa 1926-1939 – A History of Japan by Shigeru Mizuki, translated by Zack Davisson / ISBN 9781770466258 / 532-page paperback published by Drawn & Quarterly
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A fascinating period in Japanese history recounted by manga’s most distinguished author
Showa 1926–1939: A History of Japan lays the groundwork for Eisner award-winning author Shigeru Mizuki’s historical and autobiographical series about Japanese life in the twentieth century. Depicted against his trademark photorealistic backdrops, Mizuki effortlessly portrays a nation forced into a period of upheaval and brings history into the realm of the personal. Indeed, as a child coming of age in the Showa era, the author’s earliest memories coincide with key events of the time.
It all begins with the Great Kanto Earthquake, a natural disaster that forces the country into a financial crisis. The period leading up to World War II is thus a time of economic hardship and record unemployment. Forthright descriptions of ensuing militarization reveal Mizuki’s lifelong stance as a thoughtful pacifist, critical of domestically disputed events like the Nanjing Massacre clearly painted here as an atrocity. This first volume in a four-part series is a captivating historical portrait tracking the industrial and societal developments that would come to shape Japan’s foreign policy in the interwar period.
Born March 8, 1922 in Sakaiminato, Tottori, Japan, 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 around the world 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. His award-winning works include Kitaro, Nonnonba, and Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths. Mizuki’s four-part autobiography and historical portrait Showa: A History of Japan won an Eisner Award in 2015.
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