SHOWA HISTORY OF JAPAN GN (2025)

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.

"Showa 1939-1944: A History of Japan continues award-winning author Shigeru Mizuki's autobiographical and historical account of Showa Era Japan. This volume covers the final moments of the lead-up to World War Two and the first few years of the Pacific War; it is a chilling reminder of the harshness of life in Japan during this highly militarized epoch. Mizuki writes affectingly about the impact on the Japanese populace of world-changing moments. On a personal level, these years mark a dramatic transformation in Mizuki's life, too; his idyllic childhood in the countryside comes to a definitive end when he's drafted into the army."

"The penultimate volume of the Showa series continues award-winning author Shigeru Mizuki's autobiographical and historical account of Showa period Japan. This volume recounts the events of the final years of the Pacific War, and the consequences of the war's devastation for Shigeru Mizuki and the Japanese populace at large. After the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Japan and the United States are officially at war. Two rival navies wage a series of micro-wars across the tiny Pacific islands, and finally, the United States unleashes the deathblow with a new and terrible weapon-the atomic bomb. Showa 1944-1953 is a searing condemnation of the personal toll of war from one of Japan's most famous cartoonists."

"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. A former enemy becomes their greatest ally as the USA funnels money, jobs, and opportunity into Japan, hoping to establish the country as a bulwark against Soviet communist expansion. 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 WWII."