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Farewell ceremony for
special attack corps
ohka squadron
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Manga
Japanese manga (comic) books and magazines cover a very wide range of topics,
such as business, cooking, golf, history, and numerous academic topics. Many adults
and children read manga on a regular basis, especially when commuting to and
from work or school. One genre of Japanese manga includes stories about World
War II, including special attack corps that
carried out suicide attacks near the end of the war.
Between 1994 and 2001, Combat Comics
published seven stories about different types of special attack corps, such as
suicide attacks by kaiten (manned torpedoes) and ohka (piloted rocket-powered
gliders). Combat Comics
issued an anthology of these stories in Tokkou: The Spirit of Kamikaze
in 2001.
Tokkou no shima 1 (The isle of tokkou 1)
gives a realistic portrayal of training at a kaiten base in late 1944. This
story depicts the relationship between Lieutenant Junior Grade Sekio Nishina and Ensign Kozo
Watanabe, who both died in the first kaiten attack on November 20, 1944.
Aa tokkou:
Chiran, Kanoya ni saita wakazakura (Ah, special attacks: Young cherry blossoms that bloomed in Chiran and
Kanoya) is an anthology of eight stories by different authors about suicide
attack squadrons that sortied from
air bases in southern Japan. Most
stories were originally published in the 1970s. "Aa
Ioutou" "Ningen gyorai kaiten" ("Ah, Iwo Jima" "Kaiten
human torpedo") is a similar anthology from the same publisher. The
five war manga stories, including one about kaiten pilots and another about ohka
pilots, were originally published from 1968 to 1978.
In the manga book entitled Ginga tokkoutai kishuu seri!
(Ginga special attack corps kamikaze attacks!), the first story tells about
a squadron of 16 Ginga (Frances) twin-engined bombers that make a
fictional suicide attack on B-29 air bases in Saipan and Tinian.
Nichibei
taiheiyou kessen!! (Japanese-American Final Battle in Pacific!!) has two stories about special attacks. "Fate's Wake," which depicts the sinking of the heavy
cruiser USS Indianapolis, includes kaiten (manned torpedo) pilots as main characters. "Special
Attack!! Battleship Yamato" portrays the giant battleship's sinking by
American warplanes.
Deguchi no nai umi (Sea without exit),
a manga story for teenage girls, tells the love story between a kaiten human
torpedo pilot named Koji Namiki and his girlfriend Minako Narumi. The manga is
based on a 2004 novel by Hideo Yokoyama, and a film was released in September
2006 based on the same novel.
The final manga reviewed in this section has a unique style quite different
than the first two
books. Yoshinori Kobayashi, one of Japan's most popular manga artists, argues
strongly for his nationalist positions in Sensouron (On war)
published in 1998. This popular manga book that sold over 600,000 copies has
three chapters about special attack corps.
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