Manga like Showa-Shi

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 , Tragedy , Work , School , Seinen

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

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

Shigeru Mizuki's autobiography on 1500 pages in six volumes.

Tags: Historical , Autobiographical , War , Seinen , Youkai

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 Male Cast , Primarily Adult Cast , Seinen , Guns , Suicide

Tezuka Osamu Monogatari

Also known as The Osamu Tezuka Story: A Life in Manga and Anime.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Slice of Life

This graphic-format biography of Osamu Tezuka--Japan's "God of Manga"--looks at one of the twentieth century's great creative artists (Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion, Black Jack). It is also an anecdotal study of the evolution of Japan's early manga and anime business and its heroes. A never-before-seen popular culture history of postwar Japan, it is sure to fascinate fans and anyone interested in manga, anime, and the potential of the graphic storytelling medium.

Volume count differs by region, but they are all divided into three chapters: The Appearance of Osamushi, 1928~1945 (オサムシ登場, Osamushi Toujou) - Covers Tezuka's youth, his developing talents during his school days, fascinations with bugs, manga, and animation, and his trials and tribulations during the war. Dreams of Manga, 1945~1959 (漫画の夢, Manga no Yume) - Covers the immediate struggles of the Post-War period, his time in medical school and the decision between being a physician or a mangaka, his debut and career throughout out the 50s. Also covers the emergence of the assistant system, the many assistants that would later become famous mangaka themselves (Matsumoto, Ishinomori, the Fujios, etc.), the obsession with movies and the influence they have on manga, and the gradual shift toward animation. Dreams of Anime, 1960~1989 (アニメの夢, Anime no Yume) - Covers his time entering animation interning at Toei, the founding of his Anime Studio, Mushi Production, the culture of the studio, the anime adaptation of Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atom) and the emerging anime production philosophies, the collapse of Mushi Production, the "Dark Tezuka" period, Tezuka Productions, Black Jack, the events leading to the Osamu Tezuka Complete Works, later anime productions, and his tragic passing.

Tags: Work , Biographical , Historical , Non-fiction , Drawing , War , Writing , School

Hoero Pen

Status: Finished
Genres: Comedy

The truth about the mangaka: Moyuru Honoo will show how hard and dangerous this job is. But his passion for drawing and for the supreme art of mangas can't be stopped, even by blonde assassins, alien writers, and unhappy editors!

Tags: Seinen , Drawing , Work , Primarily Adult Cast , Episodic

Shissou Nikki

Also known as Disappearance Diary.

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

In 1989, comic artist Hideo Azuma succumbs to the pressures of deadlines and tries (unsuccessfully) to hang himself using the slope of a mountain. He leaves his family, wandering as a dumpster bum looking for scraps of food, cigarette butts or discarded alcohol. After several months he is arrested as a vagrant and returned to his home. He then repeats the cycle in 1992 this time becoming a gas pipe fitter in another town. Later, in 1998, his alcohol dependence is so bad he is forced into rehab. This book is his expression of those three periods of his life told, not in a deep or depressed way but, as befits his nature, in a buoyant and cheerful cartoon art.



Tags: Autobiographical , Male Protagonist , Non-fiction , Disability , Rehabilitation , Seinen , Homeless , Food , Work , Suicide

17-sai

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Ecchi

Included stories:
Eriko no Shiawase (絵梨子のしあわせ, Eriko's Happiness, 1972-08-23)
Shinkansen Blues (新幹線ブルース, 1972-10-25)
Salad no Uta (サラダの詩, 1973-01-10)
Erodoko (えろどこ, 1973-12-12)
Kokubou (国防, 1974-04-10)
Hama no Masago (浜の真砂, 1974-08-14)
Mitsuko-san (蜜子さん, 1975-01-08)
Hassha All Right (発車オーライ, 1975-04-08)
Koukou Kenka Bushi (高校ケンカ節, High School Brawler's Ditty, 1974-08)

Tags: Anthology , Seinen

Umareta Toki Kara Hetakuso

Status: Finished
Genres: Comedy , Slice of Life

Makoto has been clumsy since birth and has never been able to lead anything but a mediocre life. This life was the same as his father's. Small, seemingly insignificant anecdotes, but full of subtlety and insight, and above all, imbued with a heartwarming tenderness, inspired by the true life of Yarou Abe, the author of Midnight Diner, who grew up in Shimanto, in the Kochi Prefecture, in the south of Shikoku Island.

Tags: Family Life , Seinen , Male Protagonist , Primarily Child Cast

COCOON

Also known as cocoon.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama

A heart-wrenching chronicle of loss and resilience based on the true story of the Himeyuri corps of student nurses in WWII.

San and her best friend Mayu attend a boarding school for girls in Okinawa, but their studies are interrupted when they and the other students are recruited to help the war effort as assistant nurses. Sent to the front lines, the girls must deal with more than just the threat of enemy bombs overhead. Stuck working in the horrifying caves of a field hospital, San wishes she could wrap herself and her friends in a cocoon of protection. But invisible threads of affection are no match for the carnage that surrounds them, and day by day, more students perish. Worn down by starvation and loss, what will San and her remaining friends do when they are told to find their way home through the fields of total war?



Tags: War , Tragedy , Historical , Survival , Female Protagonist , Josei , LGBTQ+ Themes , Suicide , Gore , Primarily Female Cast , Rural , Crossdressing , Primarily Teen Cast , Medicine

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 , Urban Fantasy , Gangs