well I guess it's kind of like when people make movies of real life serial killers.
At best, this Mein Kampf manga will provide insight into an evil mans mind.

Just a question, how many of you have actually read Mien Kampf?

It's quite a book. Regardless of who wrote it.

lolita manga please............oh wait well I guess that's already kinda been done :\

Haven't read Mein Kampf yet, probably will soon. I've been on a bit of a history literature kick.

I would probably read this. I think stories about almost completely unredeemable main characters are interesting. I loved A Clockwork Orange, American Psycho, etc.

And I can see where the choice of manga as a medium might be weird or even offensive to some.

I would love to see an anime or manga based on A Clockwork Orange, loved the movie and the book, and Alex Delarge on anime could work incredibly well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War
http://www.tribo.org/nanking/

I'd like to see manga works of these atrocities that the Japanese did to China during World War II. That will hopefully make a lot of current and future Japanese aware of what they forefathers did, accept it, apologize it and move over with it. That'll strengthen the relationship between the countries and make WWIII even less likely to happen.

@Amon: that'll never happen. They'll never apologize for anything, a country rarely does so unless forced.

Not cool.

I read the book auf Deutsch and found it to be a whiny diatribe misplacing blame on everyone but oneself. The Treaty of Versailles is what led a great people to follow a mad man out of desperation and target a social class with all the money at the time. I know Japan eats up this "racial purity" crap but it's gotta stop.

Japan also really needs to cut with the Nazi shit because it's really only making them look even more fucked up in the eyes of the rest of the world -- making colourful cartoons of a war machine that nearly eradicated an entire race of people is not only insensitive to the survivors' plight, it's just plain ignorant and immature (Imagine an American cartoon about two cartoon nukes that target Japanese cities).

This crap should be left buried in a past of shame so the people that lived it (those still alive) can move on with their lives and our generation need only understand the sins of our grand parents' generation should never be repeated. Cartoons glorifying this crap is even more insulting than rape games.

I'm all for free expression, but I'm worried that it's things like this that only worsen some peoples' views of Japan. Yes, despite what you may think, beyond these safe walls at Japanator, there is a large number of people who find Japanese culture to be just a bit on the strange, if not disturbing side.

Also, I feel it's a bit of, "too soon" as well, despite it happening over 6 decades ago. There are still survivors of the Holocaust and I think it's a bit of a disservice to them and their tragedy to publish a work that caused the near destruction of an entire race of people.

On another note,
@Amon- Unfortunately, I agree with Yaku. I would love a manga about that to be published, if just so that the Japanese would finally truly understand what their forefathers did (with pride).

But the Japanese will never apologize. It's not like them to admit to their sins, and as far as I can tell, it's going to stay that way. Not just because of conservative desire to keep those things hidden, but because Japan's younger generation simply doesn't care enough about China to bother apologizing.

No. Just no. There's a reason the word Nazi is essentially a jail sentence in Germany. There isn't a single good reason to make this. All the researchers have all the info they need already. This is something I would NEVER want to see in manga format, especially being Jewish and all. This just.... isn't right.

Can't really comment on this one, but being a huge World War II buff, this would be something that I'd be interested in reading.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Disagreeing with this manga is like denying the fact that Hitler was the greatest leader mankind has seen.

Does the previous statement mean Hitler was great? No, he was horrible. But is it true? It really is.

Germany was struggling, the Treaty of Versailles basically pointed all of the blame at Germany (who lost the first war) and from then on, the people of Germany were different. They were defeated, not just as a nation, but in spirit.

Hitler not only turned the tide of the German pride of nationalism, he led them to do the terrible things that they did. People willingly threw infants out of windows and caught them on bayonets. People willingly asphyxiated other people by pouring sand down their throats. People willingly committed terrible atrocities towards other people because Hitler led the people like no other leader has.

It doesn't matter whether you agree with Hitler and the Nazis, I certainly don't, but facts are facts. To deny them is to believe in a lie, and maybe that comforts you, but right there is a problem. It's more convenient for you to forget something that hurts instead of accepting it and remembering it.

To forget what happened is a terrible injustice to those who were victims of the holocaust. To forget what happened is a terrible injustice to those who survived the holocaust. If we go on forgetting what the holocaust was, we are doomed to repeat it.

The generation that experienced it, they're dying at a rate of about 1200 a day. It won't be long until everyone who lived in that time period is gone. And all that will be left are the distant relatives. And when they forget, all we will have is our history books. That were written and censored by the victors of the war.

It is true humans will never truly forget the holocaust even happened, we have the internet to store our history until every byte of information is destroyed. But as history drifts further and further away from us as a species, the less impact it will have on us. Ever heard of the Spanish Inquisition? Do you truly understand the atrocities they committed? Do you understand that the Nazis developed social philosophies that America has used over the past 50 years to control its citizens?

Sorry to have written a novel about this, it just bugs me that people are so quick to forget the truth in the name of convenience. I firmly believe that no matter how much it may hurt, remembering the truth is the best thing for us. It will guide our principals and lead us in a direction away from repeating it.

This manga makes Mein Kampf easier to digest for younger people in the world these days. It is delivered through a medium that is easier to grasp and understand, as many people read and enjoy manga. It's much like how kids these days understand music through Rock Band, even if it wasn't a part of their generation, they still get to experience it and know of its existence by proxy of another entertainment medium.

What Hitler did was atrocious, but simply because what happened with the Nazis was so bad that people would willingly choose ignorance... man, I'm not sure I can really find the words... I mean, really? You really think forgetting what happened in our species' darkest times is for the better?

I think a manga version of Mein Kampf would have been less painful to read for my Core Humanities class (a graduation requirement at my university). We only had to read an excerpt containing his views on modern art-- truthfully it was interesting and one of the few reading assignments that I actually did-- but many of my classmates did not.

You might think manga is spoon-feeding, but it's a different way of presenting information. Unless the manga is actively glorifying Hitler outside of what is present in the original text, I don't see this as any different from making Shakespeare manga. This is our cultural history, like it or not.

[quote]Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
[/quote]
I completely agree with you. This manga isn't glorifying him in any way. He wrote Mein Kampf himself, and what better way to understand an evil man than to read what he has written? It's an unbiased piece of history that we can't just ignore. My little cousin doesn't even know who Hitler is or what he did! How sad is that? Putting Mein Kampf in manga form is just making history more accessible to younger generations. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

@Slust: Dammit Slust, you've already posted most of the points I was thinking about!

I hope they make a manga Art of War or Waiting for Godot. Or, if they're feeling really gutsy, The 120 Days of Sodom (which would immediately be banned outright in most countries). A manga version of that would be the end-all hentai.

I want to see manga of Jonathan Swift's works.

Haha, The-Excel, I actually read both A Modest Proposal and an excerpt from Mein Kampf in the same class. With a modest proposal, retarded kids learned about satire, with Mein Kampf they learned how to look at a fundamentally flawed argument and shred it into itty bitty bits.

So I totally just Wiki'd the 120 Days of Sodom, kinda wish I hadn't :P

@The-Excel: Adding pictures to A Modest Proposal would be disturbing but hilarious. XD

There is a Gulliver's Travels manga. It's from the same series as the Shakespeare stuff, I think.

The God Delusion in manga form would be nice ;-)

Japan has a history of misconstruing antisemitism in its cultural exchange with the West that's borderline comical: see the Fugu Plan (Jews are good with money? Let's bring them to Japan for profit!) and the story of how Jews in the Shanghai Ghetto during WWII were saved by telling the Japanese that they were being persecuted for being dark-haired and short. This, if presented in a straight and serious manner, would be a considerable improvement.

Like Amon, I think the Japanese have much more important historical issues of their own to come to terms with than worrying about spreading the moronic ranting of the universally despised Hitler.

@Paustinj: Cannot unread. To those reading this post, take heed.

While I'm at it, I propose a manga Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Atlas Shrugged.

The book series is about a years old, I just checked Amazon japan. How about a Anne Frank Manga?

The Japanese have been into Germany since they started modernizing. The military and Diet were both modeled after Germany, and I think the education system as well (up to a point). In fact, I think the whole image of the Meiji emperor in full Western regalia was modeled after Germany. I think Japan basically decided, when modernizing, to take the best of each segment of Western culture, and decided that the German Empire circa 1900 was the best model for a Japanese Empire.

Unrelated to that, a lot of Jews found a safe haven in Japan during the Holocaust.

Can't say I've ever been compelled to read "Mein Kampf."
Can't say the manga has heightened my interest either.