Kamikaze
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	Farewell ceremony for special attack corps ōka squadron

Manga

Japanese manga (comic) books and magazines cover a very wide range of topics, such as business, cooking, golf, history, and numerous academic topics. Many adults and children read manga on a regular basis, especially when commuting to and from work or school. One genre of Japanese manga includes stories about World War II, including Special Attack Corps that carried out suicide attacks near the end of the war. This section includes reviews of the following manga stories:

• "Ā Iōtō" "Ningen gyorai kaiten" ("Ah, Iwo Jima" "Kaiten human torpedo") - Anthology of five war manga stories, including one about kaiten human torpedo pilots and another about ōka pilots, that were originally published from 1968 to 1978.
• Ā tokkō: Chiran, Kanoya ni saita wakazakura (Ah, special attacks: Young cherry blossoms that bloomed in Chiran and Kanoya) - Anthology of eight stories by different authors about suicide attack squadrons that made sorties from air bases in southern Japan. Most stories were originally published in the 1970s.
• Deguchi no nai umi (Sea without exit) - Manga story for teenage girls that tells the love story between a kaiten human torpedo pilot named Kōji Namiki and his girlfriend Minako Narumi. The manga is based on a 2004 novel by Hideo Yokoyama, and a film was released in September 2006 based on the same novel.
• Ginga tokkōtai kishū seri! (Ginga special attack corps kamikaze attacks!) - First story tells about a squadron of 16 Ginga (Frances) twin-engined bombers that make a fictional suicide attack on B-29 air bases in Saipan and Tinian.
• Jitsuroku: Kamikaze tokubetsu kōgekitai, kanzenban (Authentic accounts: Kamikaze Special Attack Corps, unabridged edition) - Tells the stories of six individual pilots in the Navy and Army Special Attack Corps, including Yukio Seki, Saburō Miyagawa, Toshio Anazawa, Hajime Fujii, Takamasa Senda, and Tatsuo Nakatsuru.
• Matsuru mono ga matsurareru 1: Shinjuwan kyū gunshin irei hiwa (Those who honor others will be honored 1: Secret stories of memorial to nine war gods of Pearl Harbor) - Tells story of nine midget submarine pilots who trained at Mitsukue Bay in Ehime Prefecture and died in attack on Pearl Harbor.
• Matsuru mono ga matsurareru 2: Rikugun tokkōtai 1036 eirei to tomo ni (Those who honor others will be honored 2: With 1,036 spirits of war dead in Army Special Attack Corps) - Depicts life of Tadamasa Itatsu, former Army Special Attack Corps pilot who served as first director of Chiran Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots.
• Nichibei taiheiyō kessen!! (Japanese-American Final Battle in Pacific!!) - Has two stories about special attacks. "Fate's Wake," which depicts the sinking of the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis, includes kaiten (manned torpedo) pilots as main characters. "Special Attack!! Battleship Yamato" portrays the giant battleship's sinking by American warplanes. 
• Raburetā (Love Letters) - Depicts true love story of Chieko Machida and Toshio Anazawa, who died in a special (suicide) attack from Chiran Air Base on April 12, 1945.
• Sensō to komikku: Kinjirareta senshi (War and comics: Forbidden war history) - Contains seven stories of extreme human suffering of Japanese soldiers during the Pacific War. Two involve characters in Japan's Special Attack Corps with one story about the desire of two pilots to avoid their mission of death and another story that involves tragic loss of life with little effect on the overall course of the war.
• Sensōron (On war) - By Yoshinori Kobayashi, one of Japan's most popular manga artists, who argues strongly for his nationalist positions in this book published in 1998. This popular manga book that sold over 600,000 copies has three chapters about the Special Attack Corps.
• Ten megurishi ya: Oshige-san to kaiten tokubetsu kōgekitaiin (Turn heaven: Oshige and kaiten special attack corps members) - About kaiten (human torpedo) pilots who visited inn near Ōtsushima Kaiten Base where Oshige worked and treated them like their own mothers.
• Tokkō no shima 1 (The Isle of Tokkou 1), Tokkō no shima 2 (The Isle of Tokkou 2), Tokkō no shima 3 (The Isle of Tokkou 3), Tokkō no shima 4 (The Isle of Tokkou 4), Tokkō no shima 5 (The Isle of Tokkou 5), Tokkō no shima 6 (The Isle of Tokkou 6), Tokkō no shima 7 (The Isle of Tokkou 7), Tokkō no shima 8 (The Isle of Tokkou 8), Tokkō no shima 9 (The Isle of Tokkou 9) - Tokkō no shima 1 (The Isle of Tokkou 1) gives a realistic portrayal of training at a kaiten base in late 1944. This story focuses on the relationship between Yuzō Watanabe and Lieutenant Junior Grade Sekio Nishina, co-creator of the kaiten special attack weapon. Tokkō no shima 2 (The Isle of Tokkou 2) continues the story of Yuzō Watanabe and his friend Masao Sekiguchi, depicts the first kaiten attack at Ulithi in November 1944, and shows the sendoff from the island of Ōtsushima of the I-53 submarine carrying four kaiten. In Tokkō no shima 3 (The Isle of Tokkou 3), I-53 with Watanabe and Sekiguchi aboard gets bombed by five enemy planes and then gets subjected to many depth charges dropped from three enemy destroyers. Tokkō no shima 4 (The Isle of Tokkou 4) starts with the arrival at Tanegashima of the heavily damaged I-53 submarine, which at the end of Volume 3 had escaped three enemy destroyers when Sekiguchi led them away from the submerged submarine with his kaiten. After completion of repairs, I-53 continues its mission to Kossol Passage in the Palau Islands with three remaining kaiten weapons. Tokkō no shima 5 (The Isle of Tokkou 5) tells the story of the rescue of Yuzō Watanabe, pilot of the kaiten that did not launch from the I-53 submarine, and the submarine's escape from four enemy ships dropping depth charges. Watanabe returns in depression to the kaiten base at Ōtsushima, where he becomes a kaiten instructor after the base commander refuses to assign him as a pilot on the next kaiten mission from the base. Tokkō no shima 6 (The Isle of Tokkou 6) covers kaiten pilot Yuzo Watanabe's five-month stay on Ōtsushima Base after he returned alive. He and Commander Itakura, head of the kaiten base, share their feelings toward the war and the kaiten program. The inner feelings of the six kaiten pilots aboard the I-53 submarine are revealed in Tokkō no shima 7 (The Isle of Tokkou 7) as the submarine moves toward an enemy convoy of 17 ships in the Bashi Channel located between Taiwan and the northern coast of the Philippines. In Tokkō no shima 8 (The Isle of Tokkou 8), the I-53 submarine comes under constant attack by exploding depth charges dropped from two enemy escort ships, and Yuzō Watanabe's kaiten gets launched. Tokkō no shima 9 (The Isle of Tokkou 9) ends the manga series with Yuzō Watanabe's sinking of an American destroyer escort.

Nine volumes of Tokkō no shima (The isle of tokkou)

• Tokkō: The Spirit of Kamikaze - Anthology of seven stories originally published between 1994 and 2001 about different types of Special Attack Corps, such as suicide attacks by kaiten (manned torpedoes) and ōka (piloted rocket-powered gliders).
• Tokkōbana: Manga de yomu tokkōhei monogatari (Kamikaze flowers: Reading kamikaze pilot stories by comics) - Four stories, including one that involves tokkōbana (kamikaze flowers), about Special Attack Corps pilots who took off on suicide attacks from Kyūshū toward Okinawa.
• Zero no hakutaka (Zero white hawks) - Three volumes tell stories of five members of the fictional Kamikaze Special Attack Corps Kizakura (Yellow Cherry Blossom) Squadron who took off from Kanoya Air Base on May 7, 1945.