Shigeru Mizuki
| Shigeru Mizuki 水木 しげる |
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|---|---|
 |
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| Born | Shigeru Mura March 8, 1922 Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan |
| Died |
November 30, 2015 (aged 93) Tokyo, Japan |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Area(s) | Writer, penciller, inker, manga artist, |
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Notable works
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GeGeGe no Kitaro Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths Akuma-kun Showa: A History of Japan |
| Awards | See below |
Shigeru Mizuki (水木 しげる Mizuki Shigeru?, March 8, 1922 – November 30, 2015) was a Japanese manga author and historian, best known for his series GeGeGe no Kitarō (Japanese: ゲゲゲの鬼太郎, literally "spooky Kitarō") – originally titled Hakaba Kitarō (Japanese: 墓場鬼太郎, literally "Kitarō of the Graveyard") – Kappa no Sanpei, and Akuma-kun. Born in a hospital in Osaka and raised in the city of Sakaiminato in Tottori prefecture, he later moved to Chōfu, Tokyo where he remained until his death. His pen-name, Mizuki, comes from the time when he managed an inn called 'Mizuki Manor' while he drew pictures for kamishibai. A specialist in stories of Yōkai (妖怪, traditional Japanese monsters, ghouls, and goblins), he is considered a master of the genre. Mizuki was also a noted historian, publishing works relating to world history, Japanese history, and his own World War II experience.
Mizuki was born Shigeru Mura (武良 茂 Mura Shigeru) in the city of Osaka, the second of three sons. He was raised in the coastal city of Sakaminato, where he spent much of his childhood as a 'scrapper': picking fights and participating in childish warfare with the neighbouring children. He displayed from an early age a particular talent for art. During his time in elementary school, Mizuki's teachers were so impressed by his skills with a pencil that they organised an exhibition of his work, and he later went on to be featured in the Mainichi newspaper as something of an artistic prodigy. In addition to this penchant for the artistic, Mizuki had a vested interest in the supernatural - something that was only fueled by listening to ghost stories told by a local woman named Fusa Kageyama, but whom the young Mizuki nicknamed "Nononba".
However, in 1942, he was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army and sent to New Britain Island in Papua New Guinea. His wartime experiences affected him greatly, as he contracted malaria, watched friends die from battle wounds and disease, and dealt with other horrors of war. Finally, in an Allied air raid, he was caught in an explosion and lost his dominant (left) arm. Regarding this life-changing event, a Nov. 30, 2015 NHK announcement of his death showed excerpts of a video interview with him at age 80, in which he said that as the only survivor of his unit, he was 'ordered to die' — a prospect he considered ridiculous. The result of Mizuki's wartime experience was a concurrent sense of pacifism and goodwill. In the same interview, he explained that his Yōkai characters can be seen only in times of peace, not war, and that he purposely created these supernatural creatures to be of no specific ethnicity or nationality as a hint of the potential for humanity. While in a Japanese field hospital on Rabaul, he was befriended by the local Tolai tribespeople, who offered him land, a home, and citizenship via marriage to one of their women. Mizuki acknowledged that he considered remaining behind, but was shamed by a military doctor into returning home to Japan first to face his parents, which he did reluctantly.
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