Manga like Boku no Isshou wa Gegege no Rakuen da: Manga Mizuki Shigeru Jijoden

Hinemosu no Tari Nikki

Status: Releasing
Genres: Comedy , Drama , Slice of Life

After a long carrier and satisfyine life, Chiba Tetsuya only desires tranquility and peace. Through flash-back scenes, the 1939-born author remembers the big moments in his life, his youth under the U.S. bombings, the exile from Tôkyô, his recklessness in those times, but also his carrier, his beginnings, the hard moments, Tezuka's death... an extraordinary life tale filled with a refreshing positivism. A rare testimony by a master storyteller.

Tags: Autobiographical , Full Color , Historical , Seinen , Drawing , War

Nonnonba to Ore

Also known as NonNonBa.

Status: Finished
Genres: Slice of Life , Supernatural

Autobiographical tale in which Mizuki narrates the memories of his childhood in the decade of 1930, in Sakaiminato, a small coastal town at the southwest Japan. With nostalgia and tenderness, the mangaka narrates his first years of life within a modest family, the fights with his friends,the school and his first loves. The title character of the book, NonNonBa, is an old mystical and superstitious woman by which Shigeru discovers the world of yokai, supernatural beings and grotesque bestiary of medieval Japanese.

Won Best Album at the 2007 Angoulême International Comics Festival.

Tags: Autobiographical , Youkai , Historical , Coming of Age , Rural , Fairy Tale , Gangs , Urban Fantasy

Souin Gyokusai seyo!

Also known as Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Psychological

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths is his first book to be translated into English and is a semiautobiographical account of the desperate final weeks of a Japanese infantry unit at the end of World War II. The soldiers are told that they must go into battle and die for the honor of their country, with certain execution facing them if they return alive. Mizuki was a soldier himself (he was severely injured and lost an arm) and uses his experiences to convey the devastating consequences and moral depravity of the war.



Note: Won Best U.S. Edition of International Material at the Eisner Awards in 2012.

Tags: Military , Historical , War , Autobiographical , Tragedy , Primarily Adult Cast , Primarily Male Cast , Seinen , Guns , Suicide

Showa-Shi

Also known as Showa: A History of Japan.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama

When the Showa Era began, Mizuki himself was just a few years old, so his earliest memories coincide with the earliest events of the Era. With his trusty narrator Rat Man, Mizuki brings history into the realm of the personal, making it palatable, and indeed compelling, for young audiences as well as more mature readers. As he describes the militarization that leads up to World War II, Mizuki’s stance toward war is thoughtful and often downright critical – his portrayal of the Nanjing Massacre clearly paints the incident (a disputed topic within Japan) as an atrocity. Mizuki’s Showa is a beautifully told history that tracks how technological developments and the country’s shifting economic stability had a role in shaping Japan’s foreign policy in the early twentieth century.



Tags: Historical , Autobiographical , War , Educational , Politics , Non-fiction

Gekiga Hyouryuu

Also known as A Drifting Life.

Status: Finished
Genres: Comedy , Drama , Romance , Slice of Life

Over four decades ago, Yoshihiro Tatsumi expanded the horizons of comics storytelling by using the visual language of manga to tell gritty, literary stories about the private lives of everyday people. He has been called "the grandfather of Japanese alternative comics" and has influenced generations of cartoonists around the world. Now the visionary creator of "The Push Man and Other Stories" and "Good-bye" has turned his incisive, unflinching gaze upon himself. Over ten years in the making, "A Drifting Life" is Tatsumis' most ambitious, personal, and heart felt work: an autobiographical bildungsroman in comics form. Using his life long obsession with comics as a frame work, Tatsumi weaves a complex story that encompasses family dynamics, Japanese culture and history, first love, the intricacies of the manga industry, and most importantly, what it means to be an artist. Alternately humorous, enlightening, and haunting, this is the masterful summartion of a fascinating life and a historic career.



Tags: Drawing , Historical , Autobiographical , Non-fiction , Gekiga , Tragedy , Work , School

Gegege no Kakeibo

Status: Finished
Genres: Slice of Life

The story is autobiographical and is similar to GeGeGe no Nyobo by Nunoe Mura (Mizuki's wife), about their struggles with poverty and difficulties in publishing GeGeGe no Kitaro. Gegege no Kakeibo addresses these struggles from Mizuki's point of view.



Tags: Non-fiction , Autobiographical

Gekiga Bakatachi!!

Status: Finished
Genres: Comedy , Slice of Life

Around 1955, rental bookstores—which lent books for 10 yen a day—were on the verge of their heyday. At the time, there were four manga publishers in Osaka catering to these rental shops, and Hinomaru Bunko in Semba was a bustling hub where young, impoverished but dream-filled artists—including Takao Saito, Masaaki Satou, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, and Masahiko Matsumoto—gathered! This is the story of these artists, who would later popularize a style of manga known as “gekiga,” and the beginning of the history of gekiga itself!

Tags: Historical , Autobiographical , Gekiga

Look Back

Also known as Look Back.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Slice of Life

Fujino is a fourth grader who draws a manga strip for the school newspaper. Her art makes her the star of the class, but one day she's told that Kyomoto, a student who refuses to come to school, would also like to submit a manga for the paper...



Note: The one-shot was compiled in a special volume, released on September 3, 2021.

Tags: Drawing , Tragedy , Female Protagonist , Primarily Female Cast , Hikikomori , Shounen , Coming of Age , Work , Meta , School , Philosophy , Primarily Child Cast , Rehabilitation

Yoshio no Seishun

Also known as Yoshio's Youth.

Status: Finished
Genres: Slice of Life

A young mangaka named Yoshio Tsube was drawing rental manga to support his family of seven. When he brought his new manuscript to the publisher, he met his senior, Mr. Tayama. One day, he visited Yugawara Onsen as Mr. Tayama's assistant and took a liking to the inn's maid, Yoneko. After returning to Tokyo, Yoneko visited him in Tokyo and they became close friends, but he rejected her within two months when she asked him for money.



Note: Published in Weekly Manga Sunday 1974-11-09, 1974-11-16 and 1974-11-23.

Tags: Heterosexual , Drawing

Doraemon Monogatari: Fujiko F. Fujio-sensei no Senaka

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Slice of Life

A life story of one of the most popular mangaka, Fujiko F. Fujio from the perspective of Shintaro Mugiwara, his former assistant.

Tags: Biographical