I am Gegege - The mysterious story of Mizuki Shigeru

Written shortly after his eighty-fifth birthday, I Am Gegege: The Mysterious Story of Mizuki Shigeru is a deeply personal manga autobiography in which the legendary creator opens his life to the world. The narrative unfolds across four distinct arcs, beginning with his childhood in the coastal town of Sakaiminato in Tottori Prefecture. His youth is abruptly interrupted at age twenty when he is conscripted into the Japanese Army and deployed to the village of Rabaul in eastern Papua New Guinea to support the imperial war effort in Asia. Mizuki eventually returns to his homeland missing his left arm, lost to an explosion during the conflict. Struggling to rebuild his life, he marries a local woman and desperately attempts to earn a living by drawing and selling comic books. The final arc shifts to the present day, chronicling how his creations—most notably GeGeGe no Kitaro—achieve massive success, finally allowing him and his family to live in comfort as he embraces fatherhood and grandfatherhood. This concluding section grounds itself in real-world events, even referencing a contemporary incident along the Mizuki Shigeru Road where bronze statues were vandalized and a figure of Kitaro was stolen.