Prologue:
Over the course 2016, I spent alot of time on the library in my closest city. And, like any other decent sized library, it had a comic selection. it was in this library i found some of my favorite manga of all time, from Urasawa, Tezuka and many more brilliant minds. I was in a craze for older manga during the fall season, having read most of Tezuka’s mature stories and Yoshihiro’s small story chaos, I came across one of the most unknown (in the west) yet most important works in the medium. Hakaba Kitaro. One of the creepiest and more surreal yet engaging stories
...
I’ve come across. It lacked finesse and was a bit child-like, but the art and tone were fine for what it set out to do. As with other writers before it, I started searching for other works by its author Shigeru Mizuki (may he rest in peace), and I came across this thin and nearly untouched volume. I’ve never seen such simple art been use to more dramatic effect, with beautiful yet minimalistic color use, and these words written on the front
“Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths”
“Shigeru Mizuki”
Story Overview:
We follow a squadron of men from the royal japanese army, who are set to guard a pacific island during the last days of the second world war. We get a sight into the lives of soldiers on the front. how they deal with living on an island with no connection to the homeland and knowing that there is an ever approaching danger on its way. not to say its all negative, there are silly and there are serious encounters. we get to see the soldiers do all parts of the field life, not just fighting. there are chores to be done, officers to hate and dreames of comming home.
Visuals:
In simular fashion to other manga artists from his era, Mizuki uses very simple character models, and it gets worse considering the small changes between our principle characters who are typically only different by a minor feature or two. This does however, fit very well in with the more goofy tone of the first acts of the manga. It makes expressions more cartoonish and simple, as there is more focus on visuals than on text for the more intense parts of the series.
Shigeru does hovewer show that he has much greater talent for drawing than what many of his characters might make you think. The backdrops and backgrounds are either beautiful or haunting and is always packed with attitute and emotion. This is especially true for the nature shots we get in the latter parts of the manga. the jungle truly comes to life in more ways than one.
We’re not done with his his character designs hovewer, as there is a clear destinction between who styles being used. we have the more goofy and simple artsyle I’ve described, which is present for the majority of japanese soldiers shown in the manga, especially our main cast, but once the more serious events come in, we are greeted by a gritty realistic style, where shadows overtake the faces of soldiers as they prepare for combat, a simple yet effective metaphor for the horrific things which are done by both sides in the conflict that insuses. the uniforms are also drasticly different at this point, as even with the simpler art in place for facials, there are intense detail and focus put into the folds and imperfections of their army uniforms.
Story and Characters:
As to avoid spoilers, I will keep this section relativly breif. The historical backdrop and out knowledge of what happens in the future really puts Gyukusai in a peculiar posision. and many will be thrown off by the silly moments which fill the majority of the intro-sequences. I find them however to be pretty interesting and fitting for the reality of war, where people will do anything to stay sane. we come across some stereotypes while others are broken, which can be both a good and a bad thing, depending on the situation. You can clearly see that mizuki tries to remove the stereotype of the agressive japanese, which has mostly been riled up based on the japanese conquests in china, much less the pacific theatre. You can clearly see Mizuki taking his own experiences as a japanese soldier with him while writing this.
My biggest issue with the story lies in its inherent lack of true goals. we know from the beginning what really happened in WW2, meaning that the motivations and goals given are for the most part something we already know the outcome of, and its not like the cover photo keeps this a secret. this is a problem many historical war dramas have to deal with sadly, so i wont give to many minus points for it.
characterization is something this manga does not do an astonishing task with. I can for the love of me not name a single character from the top of my head. I can remember some of their action, special mentions to mizuki’s self character and the commanding officer of his squadron. they both shown great feats of inner struggle, and both have to take hard decisions which could get them killed, if not executed. especially the concept of suicide in face of defeat is greatly explored. by many characters in this story. Personalities are definitivly made, and you might even get slightly attached to some of these character (not saying much, there exist people who like the fairy tail cast) but there is little time given for many of the characters to be expressed three-dimentionally. To some degree I can accept this thanks to the small amount of time given to tell the story, and the nature of a story we have.
Final verdict:
If you want a more unique war-drama, then this is definitivly the thing for you. The characterization and story goals might not be that of a top-shelf manga series, but the attention to detail in both art and the life of a soldier are things that definitifly drag it up.
Art : 9/10, Its no Berserk when it comes to detail, and the goofier art is eithe hit or miss, but there is no denying that when mizuki wants to too, he can be one of the best.
Story : 8/10, I might be a bit biased towards this sort of story, but even with the conflict concluded by history it still shows war in a light few other war dramas do.
Characters : 6/10 definitivly the weakest part of the story, but for such a short manga they’re able to accomplish what they need to, and their personalities are not one-dimensional. it does not make the especially memorable however.
Final score : 8/10
Media simular to this:
Letters from Iwo Jima - a near copy of showing the japanese defend an island against an american invasion in the pacific Theatre of the War.
Jul 15, 2017
Souin Gyokusai seyo!
(Manga)
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Prologue:
Over the course 2016, I spent alot of time on the library in my closest city. And, like any other decent sized library, it had a comic selection. it was in this library i found some of my favorite manga of all time, from Urasawa, Tezuka and many more brilliant minds. I was in a craze for older manga during the fall season, having read most of Tezuka’s mature stories and Yoshihiro’s small story chaos, I came across one of the most unknown (in the west) yet most important works in the medium. Hakaba Kitaro. One of the creepiest and more surreal yet engaging stories ... |
