...confirms that Shigeru Mizuki is a priceless chronicler of the major events that rocked Japan during the twentieth century...these works serve as a dire warning against the dangers of imperialism, of the consequences of choosing to fight rather than to think.
World Literature Today
$29.95 CAD/$24.95 USD
The final volume in the Eisner-nominated history of Japan.
Showa 1953–1989: A History of Japan concludes Shigeru Mizuki’s dazzling autobiographical and historical account of Showa period Japan, a portrait both intimate and ranging of a defining epoch. The final volume picks up in the wake of Japan’s utter defeat in World War II, as a country reduced to rubble struggles to rise again. The Korean War brings new opportunities to the nation searching for an identity.
A former enemy becomes Japan’s greatest ally as the US funnels money, jobs, and opportunity into the country, hoping to establish it as a bulwark against Soviet communist expansion. Japan reinvents itself, emerging as an economic powerhouse. Events like the Tokyo Olympiad and the World’s Fair introduce a new, friendly Japan to the world, but this period of peace and plenty conceals a populace still struggling to come to terms with the devastation of World War II.
The original Japanese edition of the series Showa: A History of Japan won Mizuki the prestigious Kodansha Manga Award; the English translation has been nominated for an Eisner Award.
Praise for Showa 1953–1989
Showa is literature, illustrated or not, at its finest: a story that sweeps you off your feet only to find, when you return to Earth, that nothing looks quite the same.
Los Angeles Times
