There are many reasons to read Onward Towards our Noble Deaths, and it’s hard to pick which one to start with- a good problem to have. I’ll start by approaching the “single volume aspect.” I’ve read All You Need is Kill and Uzumaki, the two standalone omnibuses I see the most on people’s shelves, and would place Onwards Towards Our Noble Deaths solidly above them both. About 350 pages, but since it was originally published in 1973, it follows the older style of having more frames per page a lot of the time, so it’s well filled, similar in that respect to the text-heavystories of Ohba & Obata (the duo that wrote Death Note and Bakuman), although in a different way that doesn’t have that same text-heavy feel.

It’s written by Shigeru Mizuki, and, as it says in the back of the book, is 90% fact (and then they tell you what exactly was changed from the actual happening). Shigeru Mizuki is one of Japan’s most legendary mangaka, on the same tier as Osamu Tezuka, (although I found OTND a little more processable by the modern reader than Adolf) although he’s only recently been introduced to the Western eye. He also happens to have been a soldier, who lost his left arm to the war, along with nearly dying to malaria, and those experiences form the basis of OTND. Mizuki’s art style is hands down better than anything I’ve read pre-90s. There’s a provocative contrast between the backgrounds, which are detailed on par with the best of modern artwork, and the characters, who use Mizuki’s distinct stylistic “cartoonish” rendering that’s reminiscent of Ping Pong, Tatami Galaxy, and other “unusual but better” styles (I haven’t read Oyasumi PunPun yet, but I’d imagine it’s similar conceptually to how that plays out with the main character. As a side note, in Urasawa’s Manben series about making manga, Mizuki gets mentioned a lot, and I think was referenced in the Inio Asano episode because of the similarities).

Without spoiling anything, I think I can safely say that OTND is about the tragic absurdity of war, with all the weight of the historical “this really happened” aspect, and a man who suffered greatly from its first-hand perspective. In some ways the themes parallel the classic film Bridge over the River Kwai, only coming from the Japanese soldier’s viewpoint, with the conversations of the characters usually feeling more like Full Metal Jacket. That’s really what’s astounding about OTND- seeing what the atmosphere was like for the “other side,” and the way that one senseless event led to another without anyone seeming to actually want to go down that path, you can’t escape the nagging question, “why did this have to happen?”

I want to keep this short, so let me just say that the omnibus is fantastically bound, and looks great on the shelf, as well as in your hands. It’s also nice how when there is a big 2 page spread they usually broke it up with panels so you don’t lose anything to the binding (there was once where they didn’t, I’m not sure why). It’s put out by Drawn & Quarterly, who I’d never heard of before, so they could probably use your support. I’ll definitely be getting more of their Mizuki as soon as I can.