Showa, A History of Japan, 1926-1939

Showa, A History of Japan, 1926-1939 is the first of four 500-to-600-page manga books covering the Showa Empire of Japan, which began on December 25, 1926 and ended on January 7, 1989.  The Showa Period was a turbulent time for Japan, beginning with the Tokyo Earthquake and the economic troubles of the 1920s leading to the worldwide Great Depression, to the Second Sino-Japanese War, to World War II, to American occupation, to independence, and beyond.

Although I've had this book since 2015, it started calling to me about a week ago; I suddenly had an urge to read this book.  What I learned about Japan and Shigeru Mizuki shocked me.  Mizuki takes an unabashed look at not only this period in Japanese history but of himself.  In fact, it's part history and part autobiography, moving from one to the other.  For instance, on one page you can be reading about the Rape of Nanjing, but a few pages later you can be reading a fart joke.

My praise of this first volume is simple.  If more of history were like this, if more of comics were like this, a lot of us would be more educated and perhaps more sympathetic.  Japan's crimes were as bad as Nazi Germany's, but Japan lacked a lot of the freedoms and luxuries Nazi Germany had.  The way Japan was organized into despotism and imperialism during the Showa Period is so clearly laid out, the way opposition was crushed, the way patriotism was used.

Hitler won with 30-something percent, and Donald Trump won with quite a few votes fewer than Hillary Clinton, but in Japan, support for the government and the military was absolute, even though these factions were often at odds.  Much of Japan did in China starting with the Mukden Incident was done by the military, wholly independent of the government.  Finally, the military and the government came together starting in 1937 (?), and that's when the true terrors began.