''Showa: A History of Japan'', known in Japan as , is a Japanese

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

series written and illustrated by

Shigeru Mizuki , also known as , was a Japanese manga artist and historian. He was known for his ''yōkai'' manga such as ''GeGeGe no Kitarō'' and '' Akuma-kun'', as well as for his war stories based on his own war manga such as '' Shōwa-shi''. He was born i ...

. An autobiographical work, it describes the author's experiences growing up during the

Shōwa period Shōwa most commonly refers to: * Hirohito (1901–1989), the 124th Emperor of Japan, known posthumously as Emperor Shōwa ** Shōwa era (昭和), the era of Hirohito from 1926 to 1989 * Showa Corporation, a Japanese suspension and shock manufactu ...

. Mizuki served in the Japanese army, and his series is critical of Japanese and American militarism.

Release

The manga was originally released by Kodansha as between November 1988 and December 1989. The manga was republished as ''Comic Showa-shi'' by Kodansha from August 1, to November 4, 1994, and a box with all the eight volumes was released on December 14, 1994. An adaptation titled was written by Kōji Kata and published on August 19, 2004, by

Iwanami Shoten is a Japanese publishing company based in Tokyo.Louis Frédéric, ''Japan Encyclopedia'', Harvard University Press, 2005, p. 409. Iwanami Shoten was founded in 1913 by Iwanami Shigeo. Its first major publication was Natsume Sōseki's novel '' ...

. In February 2013,

Drawn & Quarterly Drawn & Quarterly (D+Q) is a publishing company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, specializing in comics. It publishes primarily comic books, graphic novels and comic strip collections. The books it publishes are noted for their artistic con ...

announced it would publish the manga under the title ''Showa: A History of Japan''. The company released ''Showa 1926-1939'' in October 2013, ''Showa 1939-1944'' in May 2014, ''Showa 1944-1953'' in November 2014, and ''Showa 1953-1989'' in September 2015.

Reception

It received the 1989

Kodansha Manga Award is one of Japan's major manga awards. The event is sponsored by publisher Kodansha. It has been awarded annually for serialized manga in its third iteration since 1977. Categories The award was originally called the until 1968. In 1970, it was ...

for the general category. In 2014 and 2016, respectively, the first edition and the fourth edition of ''Showa'' published by Drawn & Quarterly were nominated by the

Harvey Award The Harvey Awards are given for achievement in comic books. Named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards were founded by Gary Groth in 1988, president of the publisher Fantagraphics, to be a successor to the Kirby Awards, which were ...

s in the category "Best American Edition of Foreign Material". It was also nominated at the

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are awards for creative achievement in American comic books. They are regarded as the most prestigious and significant awards in the comic industry and often referred ...

in the category Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia in 2014 for ''Showa 1926-1939'', and it won it in 2015 and 2016 for ''Showa 1939-1944'' and ''Showa 1953-1989'' respectively. Comics critic

Paul Gravett Paul Gravett is a London-based journalist, curator, writer, and broadcaster who has worked in comics publishing since 1981. He is the founder of ''Escape (magazine), Escape'' magazine, and for many years wrote a monthly article on comics appear ...

elected ''Showa: A History of Japan'' the third best manga published in North America in 2014, asking "What a better way to tell an epic modern history lesson than in these multi-layered, accessible manga?" Ian Scheffler of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' praised the "knack for narrative" and "ability to convey the mood of a nation" expressed by the author.

References

External links

* {{Kodansha Manga Award - General Drawn & Quarterly titles Historical anime and manga Kodansha manga Seinen manga Shigeru Mizuki Winner of Kodansha Manga Award (General) Autobiographical anime and manga