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There're some Mamoru Oshii book lists on the Internet, but they don't have detailed explanations about the contents. My Mamoru Oshii book collection is far from complete, but I'd like to write some short summaries for each of those books.
I apologize in advance for grammatical errors and misinformation.
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title: ワンワン明治維新
(Bow-wow Meiji Restoration)
release: 01/01/2012
publisher: Tokuma Shoten
[contents]
Matthew Calbraith Perry
Hanpeita Takeichi
Ryoma Sakamoto
Kaishu Katsu
Kaishu Katsu part2
Takamori Saigo
Hirobumi Ito
Toshizo Hijikata
interview with Mamoru Oshii and Tetsuya Nishio
[review]
This is a manga written by Oshii and drawn by Tetsuya Nishio. It started with Nishio's proposal for a TV series. He wanted to mix a traditional anthropomorphic animal anime style with historical stories. Oshii read the proposal and decided to make it into a manga.
The series format is very similar to Minipato. Oshii tells the trivia and his thoughts on historical figures from the Edo-Meiji era. It is not written nor supervised by a historian, so you should take his words with a grain of salt. It's just a fun history-nerd talk.
I honestly don't recommend this manga, but it has some good things.
The first point is a chapter about Ryoma Sakamoto. In that chapter, Oshii says that he is not interested in Ryoma at all. Ryoma is probably the most iconic person in the Meiji era, but Ryoma didn't have a big impact on the political situation. Oshii says that Ryoma was just a charming and communicative person. Ryoma gained benefits from other people's achievements. Plus, Oshii says that Ryoma had zero originality about the political policy. He just introduced some other person's idea to another person.
After showing Oshii's arguments, Tetsuya Nishio realizes an interesting thing.
Ryoma was
1. communicative person
2. who just ripped off some other person's idea
3. and gained benefits from other people's work.
That's Oshii himself. Nishio concludes that Oshii hates Ryoma just because Ryoma is very similar to Oshii himself. According to Nisho's afterword, Nishio's conclusion was well-received by fans.
The second point is the "how-to-win" logic in the final chapter. Oshii has constantly argued that we shouldn't rely on the losers' ethics because only winners can prove their validity. Shinsengumi was wrong because they pursued self-fulfillment without considering how to win practically. That argument partly comes from Oshii's own experience in the new-left movement.
"The theme of revolutionists is to survive and change the history."
