Consider this your WTF news of the day. Adolf Hitler's infamous book, Mein Kampf, was made into a manga series and released in Japan. Contrary to any naysayers who might think that the book sales would stagnant, maybe even fall faster than Fanny Hill's garters, this manga did rather well. Apparently the Manga de Dokuha or 'read it as a manga' book reeled in at least 45,000 buyers!

ANN covers the full story and they do point out that Far East, the publisher in question, is known to release famous works for education purposes. They even quote one of the editors to this effect. The aim appears to be studying the motives of great evil so as to understand it – and presumably to prevent it happening again. It makes sense to some extent. You need to know how someone as nasty and crazy as Hitler was able to come to power; this way you get to stop it from happening again. On that note, do keep in mind that this publishing company has created a number of manga adaptations of other somewhat controversial works so as to educate the public. Examples include Das Kapital and The Prince.

Unfortunately, Mein Kampf is understandably still a touchy topic. Come to think of it, The Prince, taken out of context and used by a nefarious group, can also be a bad book. Furthermore, there are a number of people who were hurt badly by the Nazi regime. So it makes you wonder if this publication was a good idea in the first place.

Well, on the one hand, some of the experts who encouraged its publication – for example, the German Jewish author Rafael Seligmann mentioned by ANN – state that analysis of such material does have its benefits. On the other hand, some bloggers have pointed out that younger members of Japanese society might be ignorant or even a bit apathetic about the Nazi regime. For more details, read this article that mentions cosplayers who don Nazi uniforms. Do note, this is not meant to paint the young ones as intentionally evil; I just don't think they are as aware of Nazi atrocities as their Western counterparts. Then again, with the educational controversies, especially about dumbed down exam papers, I am no longer sure about the general knowledge of modern young ones in any society.