Kouno Fumiyo - Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (Eng. trans.)

[oyceter]

This is a slim volume about the aftermath of the atomic bomb on ordinary people, one being a woman in the Hiroshima of 1955, and one being a girl in present-day Japan. It's beautifully written and drawn; the art style seems to be less typically "manga" (whatever that means) for those of you who don't generally read manga; and Kouno does some particularly interesting things with the play between dialogue and picture.

The tone of the manga is very slice-of-life-ish: gentle and sweet and every day. Of course, that makes the references to Hiroshima even more gut-wrenching. My favorite panel was a man and a woman hugging or kissing on a bridge, with the ghosts of the dead strewn over the bridge and clogging up the river beneath them, present day and past experiences colliding, the specters of the dead forever there.

I have a very complicated reaction to the manga, though. It does what it wants to do extremely well, and if that were all, I'd be shoving this in everyone's hands. But, as it were, I keep thinking about a Japanese film class I took, in which we watched Grave of the Fireflies and the professor asked if the focus on the protagonist and his sister suffering from the war was fair, given the atrocities that the Japanese army was responsible for. Back then, I thought it was fair.

Now, I still think it is a valid and a necessary portrayal, but my reaction is complicated by Japanese textbook omissions of the Rape of Nanking, the colonization of Korea, and the treatment of comfort women; by attempts to shift the blame of wartime atrocities to the generals, which I don't mind, and focus on how the Japanese people were duped by their leaders, which I do mind; by Koizumi's visit to a shrine honoring the Japanese soldiers of WWII, which I am conflicted about; by how hibakusha are still discriminated against and disproportionately suffer; and by how Japan's actions affect the well-being and livelihood of Japanese people living elsewhere (internment and ostracization).

To put it more clearly, I do not think any Japanese civilians (or soldiers, even) "deserved" anything, particularly not something on the scale of the atomic bomb. And yet, I am constantly afraid of how history can so easily be overwritten and changed, how much easier it is to document suffering something as opposed to inflicting suffering on others, how we all edit the past to make it more palatable. All this is further complicated by my being from Taiwan but never having experienced Japanese occupation and by my consumption of tons of Japanese pop culture.

I don't know enough to say whether or not Kouno is doing this; right now, I am inclined to say not. But.

Note: please, no discussion on whether or not the atomic bomb was called for.

Comments

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

I did a double-take when I reread the title of the manga because Korea is often referred to as "Land of the Morning Calm." :-]

[oyceter]

I can see how that would be disconcerting!!

[sarasusa.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard of this title before and am really glad you mention it, despite possible reservations you may have.

I'd be interested in knowing whether you've read Barefoot Gen, and and if so, yow you felt about it. I've read the first two volumes and appreciated the variety represented in them of Japanese citizens--civilians, soldiers, children--and their experiences confronted first with war's insanity and, subsequently, with the utter incomprehensibility of the bomb and its aftermath. The art style gave me pause at first, but the story is gripping. (Grim enough, though, that I haven't yet read the subsequent volumes.)

A much gentler approach to telling the story, and one crafted especially for sharing it with younger children, is this: On a Paper Crane: Tomoko's Adventure (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=8999), also known as Tsuru ni notte: Tomoko no bouken and L'oiseau bonheur (http://www.ihn-france.org/oiseau-bonheur/synopsis.html). Have you seen it?

Tangentially, here's a thought-provoking article I came across online while preparing to screen On a Paper Crane with the anime/manga group I run for kids and teens at my library: "Without Habeas Corpus: The Discourse of the Absent Body" by Bruce Williams. (http://www.kinema.uwaterloo.ca/will022.htm)

[larryhammer]

I read Town/Country once, hurriedly, and want a copy of my own to go through more leasurely. I had a complicated but largely incohate reaction to it.

---L.

[fourthage.livejournal.com]

I was similarly conflicted when I read Town/Country. Grave of the Fireflies I don't mind as much, because as I understand it's based off of a memoir. I think I would be less conflicted if Japan made some kind of official acknowledgment of their WWII aggressions. (Much like I would be less conflicted about enjoying pioneer stories if the U.S. did something concrete about the way it treated and still treats Native Americans.)

[oyceter]

It's really good! My possible reservations are more around the content of the work and the recognition and awards it's gotten in Japan, not about the quality at all, which is excellent.

I haven't actually read Barefoot Gen -- I keep meaning to, but I'm really bad at getting through older art. I haven't read the children's book either; thanks for the rec and the linkage!

[oyceter]

*nods* Yeah... I had a difficult time writing this one up!

[oyceter]

I.. am still not sure what I think of Grave. There's the little bit about the soldiers marching off to happy music and the warships outlined in lights, and I do mostly think it's an adolescent boy's fantasy about the military, but it still bugs me a little.

Also, very yes re: that an actual official acknowledgment would make things more palatable.

Hope you don't mind me...

[teagrl83.livejournal.com]

intruding on your journal like this, but your post struck me.

I just taught Ibuse's Black Rain in class and the kids had also screened Grave of the Fireflies a week before. It's always tricky to talk about representations of atrocity (even momentarily putting aside the dual agressor/victim role of Japan, which complicates things). I didn't bring up the fairness question because it makes me uncomfortable to put that thought out there (I have to specify that in a class with a higher maturity level I might be a little less uncomfortable, though even then, assumptions of "fairness" in atrocity are still unsettling to me). However, the professor and I did bring up the various controversies, so at least they would have it in mind.

But Grave of the Fireflies is tricky in that it's not about the bomb, but WWII (and in the melodramatic portrayal). I've been wondering if the two (War and the bomb) should be differentiated or not. Which tells me I need to reread The Body in Pain. In any case, there's apparently a live action of Grave of the Fireflies that was just released. The kids that I asked about it (who had watched it) gave it mixed reviews. I'm not sure if I want to see it.

Thanks for the thoughtful post!

[fourthage.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten that scene in GotF. It's been at least seven years since I saw it. I own the DVD, but it isn't exactly a movie you haul out and watch for kicks. But now that you mention it, I think I read that scene as idealized patriotism that was supposed to be seen in contrast to the reality of day-to-day living in a country at war.

[cyphomandra.livejournal.com]

I loved Town of Evening Calm, and I do think it's an honest work, in that it never feels like Kouno skewing things towards its characters and she is, I also think, trying to deal with a situation that's been ignored or overlooked (the long-term burden on survivors and their families); but I do see what you mean about the broader context, and how much easier it is to talk about victims than perpetrators.

While I think this is to some degree inevitable in storytelling, I think attitudes to war in particular shifted massively during the last century; books that I read written in the last twenty years or so about historical wars (particularly WWI & WWII) always seem to start with the assumption that war is a Bad Thing, even if it's WWII and thus a Good War. Books written at the time (say, Kipling's Stalky and Co, or Horace Vachel's execrable The Hill, which I think are both Boer War, or Ethel Turner's The Cub, which was published in 1915 and is a fairly well done attempt at getting young Australians to sign up and fight for Britain, complete with evil German soldiers committing vile atrocities on Belgian peasants) start from a completely different set of assumptions. You could argue that people felt unable to acknowledge their true feelings then, or perhaps we're just not acknowledging different feelings (or different people) now.

This got slightly off-topic. I don't know what the answer is to your professor's question. I think it's not fair if that's all you get - innocent victim narratives - and I feel that the answer should involve telling more, and different, stories, but I'm not sure if that's a responsibility more of society or of individuals (authors or readers).

(Oh, and have you read The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service? I keep lending it out to people and have therefore not written up any of the 6 volumes I've read on my lj, but it's a smart, funny manga with nifty self-contained stories as well as an interesting arc and, in actual relevance to this point, it has managed to discuss (briefly) Unit 731 and the Rape of Nanking in various storylines, as well as more recent political things like the Iraqi war, and it also has the best translation notes I have ever read (by Carl Gustav Horn). I am not sure from staring at your tags whether you like horror, so should just point out that there are also rather a lot of dismembered body parts, and the last volume kind of had a maggot theme going.)

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

(Don't know if you've seen this, but you've been linked out of MangaBlog (http://www.mangablog.net/). ^^)

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I hate to put the burden of representing all cultural experience on a book you admit is slim. But you're right-- bad things happen, but those things were also caused by something, so it's hard to judge sometimes. I have not seen Grave (and am not allowed to, knowing myself as I do, until my child is at least in high school, possibly college), but I think a child's memoir is indeed a different story, too.

Re: Hope you don't mind me...

[oyceter]

Thanks! I'm sorry it's taken so long to get back; it's taking me a lot of time to think about all the comments and the nuances of them.

I really need to read Black Rain. I think most of the reading I've done about the atomic bomb is Hersey's Hiroshima and Oe Kenzaburo.

I didn't know about the live-action version of Grave! That's... very interesting. I am not sure how I feel about that. And... I am not sure how "fair" it is or not to have talk of WWII going to the atomic bomb, and yet, it is so difficult to separate them as well.

[oyceter]

Yes, definitely -- I particularly liked her pointing out the difficulties for hibakusha and their families. And, like you mention, I don't know if it's fair on individual authors to write about everything, as it would be impossible. Yet I'm also uncomfortable waiving the question all together, because it is so easy to forget, particularly when one's government is pushing one to do so! So I am largely caught in between and unsure of what would help, save massive social change.

(I've looked at Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service when Rachel was reading it, but I think it may be too bloody for me—I tend to be very bad about horror in general and blood-and-guts as well, particularly if it's in a visual genre.)

[oyceter]

Whoa, weird! Thanks for the FYI!

[oyceter]

Yeah. And I do not think Kouno should by any means represent everything about WWII and the atomic bomb, nor should any individual author or book. And yet, because her book is getting so much critical attention and praise, it's difficult not to put her in that position, despite it not being one she asked for. But there's been a general lack of discussion of the surrounding issues that has bugged me, though it's not any one person's responsibility to bring them up, if that makes sense?

I am still unsure of how to resolve the tension between individual responsibility and societal responsibility, particularly when it comes to art.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

It's thorny. Which I suppose is good.