[Saitō Kunio] A Manga Tale of Siberian Internment 漫画シベリヤ抑留物語 (2 vols)

Tokyo: Kōjinsha (光人社), 1991.
8vo. Vol. 1: [2], 222, [2] pp., ill. Vol. 2: [2], 221, [3] pp., ill.

A prisoner of war’s memoir told as comics — nonfiction manga from inside the Siberian camps.

Saitō Kunio (旗藤邦雄, 1920–2013) was working at Toho when he was conscripted. Interned in October 1945, he moved between four camps in Irkutsk Oblast and returned to Japan in July 1948; afterwards he joined the Tokyo Children’s Manga Association, wrote for children’s magazines, and ran television animation at Fuji Television Enterprises.

These two volumes follow his own three years, from the collapse in Manchuria to repatriation — the salt factory, the road work, the arithmetic of cold. He had drawn Siberia before, but through a fictional soldier named Yomoyama. Here he says plainly that the story is his, and closes the second volume with an afterword written for this edition explaining why he chose comics to carry it.

Binding & condition

Original paper boards and pictorial dust jackets, illustrated endpapers, belly bands present. Publisher’s 1991 catalogues and reader’s cards laid in. Near very good: very light wear and soiling to the jackets.

Rarity

OCLC locates two copies outside Japan — the University of Southern California and UC Berkeley.