Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths by Shigeru Mizuki

This isn’t to say that Mizuki hasn’t written a wonderful book. It’s eerie to see that kind of military insanity carried out again 30 years later in the other half of the world. That film was based on the true story of a French Army unit in World War I. Movie buffs are going to recognize a very similar scenario from Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory. When the General in charge of the region hears about it, he orders the surviving officers be tried for cowardice. Some of the soldiers had the audacity to actually survive. Second, the noble death referred to in the title is a suicide charge Major Tadokoro commands for the battalion. There’s been no shortage of war stories with an anti-war message in post-Vietnam America. The scenes exposing the mindless bureaucracy of the army are similar to episodes of M.A.S.H.

First, the scenes of the soldiers talking about how pointless the war is, and the terrible living conditions in particular, reminded me of Platoon. I’m worried that Americans are going to find a lot of this book very familiar. Mizuki made my experiences in Naval boot camp seem like a lazy Sunday walk in the park compared to the daily reality he faced. When a guy breaks his arm, the squad beats him before sending him off to the doctor. The squad leader tells them, “New recruits are like tatami mats: the more you beat them, the better they are.” () True to his word, every night he lines up the new recruits and smacks them. Next, I was shocked by the level of abuse Maruyama and his fellow rookies suffer. It’s also a testament to humanity’s ability to survive. I’m amazed the Japanese were able to hold out as long as they did in the war, given the severe food shortages they were experiencing. Thankfully, New Britain is rich in plant life, and they’re able to gather bananas, papaya, and potatoes. Maruyama is living off of a cup of rice a day, so the soldiers become adept at harvesting wild fruits and vegetables.

Mizuki tells us that soldiers faired no better. In Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies, we see the civilian population starving and people dying of malnutrition. One thing that stands out when reading Japanese experiences of World War II is how hungry everyone is. They battle hunger, malaria, abusive squad leaders, and finally US fighting forces. Life on the tropical island is hard for the Japanese soldiers. Mizuki’s stand-in is Private Second Class Maruyama. Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths is the semi-autobiographical story (in the afterward, Shigeru Mizuki tells us 90% of it is true) of Japanese soldiers stationed on New Britain Island in the Papua New Guinean Archipelago during Word War II.

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths by Shigeru Mizuki