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is a Japanese manga artist known for his far-right political commentary manga Gōmanism Sengen. In particular, the three volumes On War (Sensōron) of this series made him famous in Japan, together selling more than 1.5 million volumes since first appearing in 1998.

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Life

A student of French literature from Fukuoka University, Kobayashi published his first manga, Tōdai Itchokusen, in 1976 in Weekly Shōnen Jump while still in school. Another of his early series, Obocchama-kun, a satire about a naughty rich boy in the heyday of Japan's bubble economy, won the 1989 Shogakukan Manga Award for children's manga.<!-- NEED OUSRCE and was also adapted into an anime and video games for the Famicom and PC Engine. -->

Kobayashi was included on Aum Shinrikyo's assassination list after he began satirising the cult. An assassination attempt was made on him by the members of the cult in 1993.

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Politics

Yoshinori Kobayashi has become one of the most prominent conservative authors and commentators of Japan's younger generations, both at home and abroad, especially in the wake of his long-running Gōmanism Sengen manga series, first published in 1992. In Gomanism, Kobayashi portrays himself as an intentionally arrogant, controversial, and extreme character, somewhat akin to Stephen Colbert. The intent of the manga is to provoke discussion in Japan's apolitical society. In actual dialogues, though, Kobayashi is much more nuanced. For example, while he takes up the Japanese history textbook controversies with the position that Japan should be allowed to write its own textbook, when talking with Susumu Nishibe, he acknowledged that the actual textbook produced by right-wing groups whitewashes history in pursuit of ideology.

Among Kobayashi's more recent opinions are that Japan should assist Taiwan independence from China, foreign opinion should not be considered by Japanese politicians in domestic issues such as visits to Yasukuni Shrine and textbook revisions, terrorist attacks such as those on September 11 will continue in America as long as foreign policy is controlled by neoconservatives, and Japan should not support the ongoing Iraq War.

In November 2013, Yoshinori Kobayashi harshly criticized the Japanese government's new secrecy bill in a front page column of the Asahi newspaper. He compared it to the Peace Preservation Act of 1925, underscoring that it was ultimately used against ordinary people in Japan’s prewar years and during World War II.

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Kobayashi is a denier of both the Nanjing Massacre and of the comfort women system during World War II.

Works

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Although On Taiwan has been translated into Traditional Chinese and was released to great controversy in Taiwan (ISBN 957-801-279-9), there are no further official translations currently planned for any of Kobayashi's works. Among his published works are:

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  • (1976)
  • (1986)
  • volumes 1–9
  • (1995)
  • volumes 1–14
  • (1996)
  • (1998), volumes 1–3 (Vol 1: , Vol 2: , Vol 3: )
  • (1998)
  • (2000)
  • (2000)
  • (2003)
  • (2005)
  • (2005)
  • , volumes 1–2
  • Live A Live (Character designer, "Prehistory" chapter)

References

Bibliography

  • French, Howard F.: Japan's Resurgent Far Right Tinkers With History, New York Times, March 25, 2001.
  • Winchester, Mark: Everything you know about Ainu is wrong: Kobayashi Yoshinori’s excursion into Ainu historiography, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 9, Issue 22, No 1, May 30, 2011.
  • Yoshinori Kobayashi manga at Media Arts Database