Yanagawa Tsuyoshi

The novelist Shiga Naoya lives with his wife Haruko and their 4-year-old daughter Saeko. He is paranoid about Saeko’s health, making her wear heavy clothes even in summer in order to prevent her from catching a cold. Their child before Saeko died due to an epidemic, and he believes thorough enforcement is a natural consequence. In 1918, the Spanish flu reaches Japan. As the number of infected people grows, Shiga starts to suspect their servant Ishi might have gone to watch a travelling entertainment troupe’s performance which drew a great number of villagers. It is something Ishi is likely to do. But when Shiga questions her, she says that she did not go. However, she makes him have misgivings on a regular basis and he decides to take this opportunity to make her quit. An uproar ensues. Shiga feels that he has become a tyrant and refrains from kicking her out but he loses all reason and faith in humanity amid the pandemic…

Takeshiro Matsuura was a Japanese explorer who was the first person to document the inner reaches of what is now known as Hokkaido. He explored the area extensively during the mid 19th century and created a map of the island that included parts which had been ignored by earlier cartographers. He visited Ainu communities and compiled records of the large numbers of the population who had been conscripted for forced labor far from their homes. Matsuura suggested the name Hokkaido for the area

Onodera Yuriko sets off for Sweden where her husband, Major General Onodera Makoto, is stationed as a military attache in Stockholm during World War II. Called the "god of intelligence", Makoto is an intelligence officer of the Russian service of the Japanese Army General Staff. Fluent in Russian and German and trusted by the spies of many countries because of his integrity, his office would eventually become the most important Japanese intelligence post in Europe. From the day of her arrival in Stockholm, Yuriko helps her husband's intelligence activities. She encrypts the highly classified information obtained by Makoto and sends it in coded telegrams to the General Staff Headquarters in Japan every day. Husband and wife have jointly undertaken this intelligence work for confidentiality.

昭和46年冬、水木は「ゲゲゲの鬼太郎」などの執筆で忙しい中、無理やりに休暇をとって、赤道直 下のニューギニアを旅した。水木は、昭和18年21歳の時に召集され、ニューギニアのラバウルに 送られた。当時ニューギニアは連合軍に島の半分を占領され、日本軍の敗色は濃厚。水木二等兵は最 前線の小隊に配属され、過酷な戦場を生き抜いた。以来、26年ぶりに踏むニューギニアの大地だっ た。そして、これがそもそものきっかけだった・・・。昭和47年となり、日々「鬼太郎」の締め切り に追われる水木の周りで不可解な事件が起きる。行きもしないレストランからは請求書が届き、連れ 込み旅館で水 木の姿を見かけたと編集者には言われる始末。おまけに水木の行く先々には、夢か幻 か、南方の象徴である"ハイビスカス"の花が咲き誇っている・・・。やが て水木は「何者かに押される 形」で、自身の戦争体験を漫画に描き始めた・・・。昭和18年、丸山二等兵(=水木)は、ニューギ ニアのバイエンにいた。ここは米軍と対峙する日本軍の最前線基地。初年兵として陣地構築の為、椰 子の木を運 び、穴を掘り、食料調達に働かされる日々だった。要領の悪い丸山は鬼軍曹にビンタを 食らう毎日だった。敵襲に備える日々の中で、加山二等兵は、行軍の最中、敵の銃弾を浴びて倒れた 。丸山は彼の小指を切って遺骨代わりにした。入隊前からの戦友・赤崎は敵の機銃掃射にやられた・・ ・。そして、漫画は否応なく、戦友たち皆が玉砕したあの"聖ジョージ岬"へと進んでいく。総員が「 玉砕」への道に向かわざるを得なかった、あの理不尽な出来事へと・・・。