A review by chelseamartinez
Shigeru Mizuki's Hitler by Shigeru Mizuki

4.0

I didn't LOVE this like I have loved every other Mizuki book; I think because all of his others that I have read, even the History of Japan, are interleaved with his personal experience and this one is not. You can still feel and see his sensibility; the looming block capital letters of propagandistic songs and chants, the use of grainy photographs, the desire to lean into showing the foolish and cowardly aspects of villains. Perhaps there is a touch of self-abnegation in the way he depicts the sloveny freeloading of Hitler-the-Artist? Anyhow, this is still very good; it's interesting to see how he is not interested in painting Hitler as DEFINITELY THE WORST PERSON EVER or a mad genius but simply someone who was skillful in channeling the anger of some of the masses after failing at many other things. A bit of a non sequitur but it really blows my mind that Franco was still in power when my mom went to study abroad, 30 years after the other fascists had fallen. I should probably read something about all that, it returns to my mind as something I'd like to understand better every few years.