Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths
Cover of Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths as published by Drawn and Quarterly
総員玉砕せよ! (Sōin Gyokusai Seyo!)
Genre	War
Manga
Written by	Shigeru Mizuki
Published by	Kodansha
English publisher	NA Drawn and Quarterly
Magazine	Shūkan Gendai
Published	1973
Volumes	1
Television drama
Kitarō ga Mita Gyokusai: Mizuki Shigeru no Sensō
Produced by	Tsuyoshi Yanagawa
Written by	Takuya Nishioka
Original network	NHK General TV
Original run	August 12, 2007
Episodes	1

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths (Japanese: 総員玉砕せよ!, Hepburn: Sōin Gyokusai Seyo!^?, literally "Whole Unit Ought to Fight to Death!") is a one-shot manga written and illustrated by Shigeru Mizuki. In it, Mizuki describes his experiences as a soldier participating in the New Guinea campaign during World War II. He portrays the final weeks of his infantry service as the soldiers were instructed to die for their country to avoid the dishonor of survival.

The manga was first published in Kodansha magazine Shūkan Gendai in 1973, based on Mizuki's work of 1970. After being translated and published by Drawn and Quarterly in 2011, Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths has been well received by English-speaking critics. It also received awards in France and in the United States, and was adapted into a television drama in 2007 by Japanese broadcaster NHK.

Shigeru Mizuki is a Japanese manga artist who is best known for his yōkai (Japanese folklore monsters)-themed manga, especially GeGeGe no Kitarō. Mizuki enjoyed writing about the monsters' histories, which a local woman related to him; however in 1942, at the age of 21, Mizuki was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army. He was sent to Rabaul, a city on New Britain island in Papua New Guinea, where his comrades died and Mizuki lost his left arm. Based on these experiences, Mizuki wrote Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, containing "90 percent fact". Fictionalizing himself as private Maruyama, Mizuki tells the story by combining drawings with photographs.