is a social

Social commentary

Social commentary is the act of rebelling against an individual, or a group of people by rhetorical means, or commentary on social issues or society...

/political commentary manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 series by Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 author Yoshinori Kobayashi

Yoshinori Kobayashi

Yoshinori Kobayashi is a bestselling Japanese author and manga artist...

.

It first appeared in a weekly Japanese magazine SPA! in 1992. After the conflict over editorial style of the magazine during the Aum Shinrikyo

Aum Shinrikyo

Aum Shinrikyo was a Japanese new religious movement. The group was founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984. The group gained international notoriety in 1995, when it carried out the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway....

 affair, the manga moved to the biweekly political magazine SAPIO. As of June 2005, there are 29 volumes of Gōmanism Sengen (ゴーマニズム宣言, roughly translated as "Haughtiness Manifesto") including the original Gōmanism Sengen, Neo-Gōmanism Sengen (新・ゴーマニズム宣言, Shin Gōmanism Sengen), Gōmanism Sengen Special, and Gomanism Sengen Extra. Among this series, the installment Neo Gomanism Manifesto Special - On War

Neo Gomanism Manifesto Special - On War

is a controversial series of manga written by right-wing Japanese manga artist Yoshinori Kobayashi. It was published in a series of three volumes by Gentosha as a supplement to the series serialized in SAPIO magazine from September 1995 onwards. There are currently no plans to translate these...

, written with a different perspective on the Pacific War

Pacific War

The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...

 and Japan's role in it, attracted overseas attention including from newspapers The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

and Le Monde

Le Monde

Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...

.