XPost: rec.arts.anime.misc   
   From: bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com   
      
        Again this is from Drawn & Quarterly and the price is the same as   
   the second volume.   
   The period covered is from 1923(Great Kanto Earthquake) and actually Showa 1   
   begins in late 1926.  Showa 2 started a few weeks later as it was done   
   according   
   to the old calendrical assumptions.   
        Shigero was born in the last year of Taisho and was a year old when   
   Showa   
   was enthroned.  He is truely a man of Showa in a way that few remaining can   
   manage, growing up in the Pre-WW II period and experiencing all the problems   
   and triumphs of the Japanese nation during the rest of Showa.   
      
        The art is strong and the story is personal as well as national.   
        While he mentions a lot of turning points in the relationship of   
   Japan with   
   the West he misses a few items such as unequal treatment in dividing   
   the spoils of WW I and other conflicts which basically amounted to   
   treatment of the Japanese nation as a 2nd class nation and the Japanese   
   people as a second class race.  The USA passed laws severally llimiting   
   Japanese   
   immigration to the USA for example and the refusal of the League of Nations   
   to insert language rejecting racial bias in its documents.   
      
        But the economic uncertainty of the times with Japan in a depressed   
   state   
   before the USA's great depression is set out clearly.  This helped empower   
   the fascistic forces in Japan which were deathly afraid of the people coming   
   to power.   
      
        I have read a few books about this period of Japanese history.   
        The Taisho emperor was a sick man most of his life.  Democratic   
   movement flourished and laws were made against Communism   
   and Anarchy.*  It was in Showa though when mass arrests were made   
   of dissenters.   
        The nation tried to fix its economic woes by expansion to the Asian   
   mainland.  In 1910 they had taken Korea to administer it for the benefit   
   of the Japanese.  Then in the 1930s they tried to annex Manchuria and   
   re-created it as a client state with PuYi, last Emperor of China as the   
   ruler.   
        And I have to say that at home in Japan things went from bad to   
   worse steadily.  Jobs were in short supply despite the fact that the   
   Army had taken many men to fight.   
      
        But Manchuria was not enough.  They had to invade China as well   
   and the body count went very high.  Some of the responsible parties   
   were executed as war criminals after WW II.  It did not stop the   
   deprivation of the people in Japan though many very poor folks   
   were shipped to Manchuria to homestead land there.   
        The West responded with boycotts and with trade embargoes.   
        So if you are into serious manga read this book.   
        And note that this is the 1st of 4 volumes.  I reviewed the second   
   volume last week and hope I get to read the rest of them soon.   
      
        bliss   
      
        And if you want to be serious about history in Japan then read   
   this book among others and learn how the consensual nature of   
   the Japanese society was used to control the dissenters.   
      
                *Thought Control in Prewar Japan by Richard H. Mitchell, fairly   
   complete review of Meji and Taisho attitudes with the changes to   
   the law in 1925, the early emphasis on communists and anarchists,   
   Liberals who considered the Emperor as a organ of the state rather   
   than the state as being essentially the Emperor, finally on right   
   wingers who did not hew to the militaristic line in Showa.   
      
        b.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)