OKINAWA by Susumu Higa: Coming July 2023

Happy New Year! Here's the book's cover!

Happy New Year all! We’re slowly getting back into the swing of things after a much-needed break. The show-notes for our wrap-up episode will go live this week, we’ve got three episodes in the can for Season 4, and things are really going to kick into gear starting next week. Exciting times!

One thing that we wanted to specifically observe though, here on the MSX Substack Newsletter Situation, is that our very first manga, Okinawa by Susumu Higa, is actually, finally coming to print this summer from the good folks at Fantagraphics in a very swank hardcover edition! We’re letting you know now because, well, the cat’s out of the bag, the cover has been revealed, and you can pre-order it now at Amazon or at Barnes and Noble or at Book Depository (with all of the other website and bookstore preorders coming soon), and a Diamond solicitation in May, I think.

For those of you who read the story as it was being serialized here on MSX (you can still do that until the print book comes out in July!), you might have recognized the background illustration on the cover, which takes a panel depicting the American bombing of Okinawa from chapter 3 and stretches it to book-cover size. As I wrote at the time:

Higa-sensei’s illustration above, of the American bombing of Okinawa, and the way the lights are depicted, reminded me quite a bit of an ukiyo-e print of fireworks (albeit limited to black and white). I feel there are many allusions in the text about how the intentions of man are perverted and misused, and this feels very much like the visual equivalent. I hope to travel back to Okinawa as soon as it’s possible! I have a million questions to ask Higa-sensei, and asking him about the artistic origins and inspiration for this panel will be one of them. By way of comparison, please enjoy this image of by Utagawa Hiroshige, Fireworks at Ryogoku, from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. (1858)

When we brought the project to Fantagraphics, we had a real discussion about the cover and what it should mean. You might remember that we originally had a different cover planned for the book, the plane crashed on the beach from the back cover of Sword of Sand.

While we discussed, we realized that the story of Okinawa is about more than the war and what happened there, though that is a huge factor in the lives of the Okinawan people. As Mabui showed us, these stories are also about resiliency, rebuilding, and the rich culture of the Ryukyu people being reclaimed and celebrated. We wanted a cover that dealt with the complexities of Okinawa’s history and people head on, with bright colors and ‘fireworks’ paying homage to the idea of the Okinawan islands as “Japan’s Hawai’i” (seriously), but the reality of the images, of the hardships and trauma, also present for the keen-eyed observers. It’s a book that’s really going to stand out on the shelves and surprise people, and the cover design by Kayla E. at Fantagraphics is really something special. Our kudos to her!

(And don’t worry, the image by Higa-sensei of the crashed plane will still appear in the book too).

Susumu Higa, December 2022.

Editor Andrew, translator Jocelyne, and myself (project manager?) just got back from Naha, Okinawa, where we met with Higa-sensei for the first time in 5 years, and brought him up to date on everything, got his blessings for the book, and then we conducted an interview that will be included as additional material in our edition(!). Higa-sensei remains warm and bright, and sharp as heck, and we’re so glad he’s stayed with us through the ups and downs of the last five years. He’s even more excited that we are to see the book released this summer.

We wanted to check in with him on everything before ‘revealing’ the cover here to you, and he’s happy, so we’re happy, so here you go.

Feel free to uh, order a few copies, and tell your friends and family. We’d really like this to be a big success. :) Or sign up to the newsletter too, that helps us keep doing fascinating projects like this one, and hopefully more by Higa-sensei in future.

On that note, there’s lots more interesting info on Okinawa to come here on the Substack, as well as, FINALLY, our next round of manga serializations. Thanks for your continued support! See you tomorrow with more!

-Christopher Woodrow-Butcher