XPost: rec.arts.anime.misc   
   From: bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com   
      
   	 Hi readers and posters,   
   		This was delivered today.   
   	I finished reading it a few minutes ago.  But I was too tired   
   to finish this note last night so finally think i had pulled it together.   
      
   	Worth the pittance they charge.  Includes a lot of color plates   
   after the bunka notes.  These were in the original Japanese editions.   
   They cover the whole series and run the gamut from touching in dealing   
   with childhood to frightening over the War Period and remind us that   
   Mizuki spent a good part of his youth painting.   
      
   	I mention in the spoilers a bit of what transpires in this   
   fourth and final volume of the series but you are really safe from   
   spoilers because I can in no way show you the art and the events   
   are a matter of public record as he covers the miseries, crimes   
   and politics of that period with a few comments from his mother and   
   father before they exit.  Not to mention that Nosumi Otoko aka   
   Rat-man does most of the public event narration. He is accompanied   
   by at least 2 other yokai much of the time.   
      
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   	==================================   
      
      
      
   	Shigero lost an arm during the ware remember? and   
   had to teach himself to execute his art one-handed and as his work   
   became more marketable as he moved from doing scrolls for story tellers,   
   to rental manga, and finally magazines.  As the magazines wanted more   
   work he hired assistants. More stories about the   
   assistants' foibles and relationships.  Uses other mangaka of   
   the period for more stories and episodes.   
   	Mizuki-sensei the mangaka, struggles though years of poverty before he   
   hits it good with Rocket-man, a riff on Superman.  Then he was forced by   
   his parents to marry at 40 very quickly.   
     	Largely he speaks through Rat-man and introduces us to the human   
   person on whom Rat-man was modeled.  He introduces us to some of his   
   dreams and nightmares as well as revisiting the jungles of New Guinea   
   first with a former comrade in arms the alone and finally with his   
   Japanese family.  He helps out the people who had as younger folks   
   and even children had helped him survive in war time.   
      
   	Finely the Showa Emperor passes on and Misuki-sensei goes   
   on to greater renown with his Showa: A comic history of Japan originally   
   published in 8 volumes and being a best selling book and winning   
   Mizuki-sensei a big prize.  He finished the series around the time of   
   Showa's exit which gave him a bit of head start on other books   
   that might be written about the Emperor and his times, plus it   
   was also Shigero's autobiography...   
      
   	The whole series is a magnificent production.   
      
   	bliss   
   	   
   	   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)