Spotlight Manga: Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms MAL Manga Information Page: Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms MAL Score - 8.02 (by 165 users) Ranked - #505 Popularity - #1620 For the next week I would like to have a discussion about the manga that focuses on the key elements that we here on MAL use to critically rate a manga: Art, Characters, Story, and Enjoyment. I would like everyone to approach this thread as if you were going to write a review and structure your initial post like this: Art - insert rating Characters - insert rating Story - insert rating Enjoyment - insert rating Art - discuss any pros and cons of the art styling used in the series, try to include some specifics. Character - describe any of the things you liked or didn't care for in regards to specific characters in the series etc... If you are having trouble writing up a review or coming up with specific pros and cons, please don't worry. Just do the best you can with it and if you can only write two or three sentences about any of the 4 elements then that's OK. Not everyone here is currently at a level which will allow them to articulate their thoughts and opinions. After your initial post is made you can feel free to civilly discuss issues of contention. I am sure there will be many opinions expressed here that some of us will disagree upon and criticise and it is for that reason that this entire club exists. So I hope everyone has fun and I am really looking forward to seeing how this discussion will develop. *Due to voting rule changes, this series is no longer in the re-vote queue and is removed from the CnC relations list. It is now available as a resurrection option. RESULTS OF THE YOU DECIDE POLL Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms was inducted into the club Manga list: 11 Yes - 73.3% 4 No - 16.7% 68 Don't Know - 81.9% of the total number polled On 3/19/2010, Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms will have to be voted on for a second and final time |
Dark-EvolutionNov 6, 2010 2:01 AM
| You do not beg the sun for mercy. |
| Art: The simple, almost childlike art lacks facial and physical detail, but with a little creativity, it is used to great effect. When one of the main characters is experiencing her first tender moment, Kouno spends a few panels building the scene up, but at its climax, instead of the sweet puppy-love moment that would have been fitting of its art style, you see a horrific memory of the Hiroshima bomb, with bodies strewn all over. Other times, it indulges in a scene that compliments its style rather than contrasts with it. When a sister visits her brother in the hospital, she brings with her fallen cherry blossoms that he's not able to see and throws them all over his hospital bed, creating a mini-hanami party. Even though the art and characters themselves aren't very expressive, it cleverly utilizes its simple style in a way that leaves a lasting impression on the reader. Story and Characters: The central stories are simple and sweet in their portrayal of romance, filial love and friendship. There's a jolliness to everything. It even manages to make life in a shanty town seem lovely. Looming in the background is the Hiroshima bomb, and the characters' experiences with this is anything but simple and straightforward. This is by no means a book that simply throws the Japanese into a victim role. It shows one survivor being completely desensitized to dead bodies, even so much as stealing from them, but also the trauma and guilt she feels for it afterwords. It also shows the superstitious discrimination the rest of Japan harbors for the "Hibakusha" - bomb survivors. Through this we see a painfully complex side of the characters' humanity that contrasts with their otherwise simple lives. In this sense, Town of Evening Calm gives the reader the feeling that the Hiroshima bomb is something completely out of place; something that robbed the characters of the charmingly normal life that we see in the foreground of the story. The sweet depictions of affection in all forms is lightly touching, but the way in which the atomic bomb disrupts that is moving in the most heartbreaking way. I gave it a 9. |
| When looking at a glance at this manga, one may be forgiven for assuming that it was written by someone who more clearly felt a need to get a message out than to create a volume that could stand up as a good manga even if the subject wasn't a loaded one: the seemingly simplistic drawing style, very short length and the clear assertion that the mangaka is Hiroshima-born all point to it. Moreover, many tales wherein the atomic bomb looms large in the background do indeed tend to be openly moralising. The story seems to be about the impact the Hiroshima bombing was to have in the long term, showing how the lives of the extended family of a survivor are still touched by it over the generations, from the direct physical and psychological trauma of a survivor through the severe and milder long-term radiation effects to the partial stigmatisation still surrounding the subject a nation prefers to forget about. In so doing, The Town of Evening Calm, The Country of Cherry Blossoms manages to almost effortlessly string together episodes in differing 'nows', depictions of the 'past' and experiences lifted from memory, equally easily switching from narrator to narrator, thereby telling its tale in a fashion that might never win the subtle convolution price but is nevertheless better constructed than one might expect at first. My main problem with this manga, the same as the one I have with regard to Barefoot Gen (the anime, that is), is that very much of the audience's appreciation is quite directly meant to be tied to the subject of the atomic bomb. The use of that subject almost assumes from the start a certain disposition of the audience towards it and works from it: it leaves little room for appreciation of the happenings if the audience has a value-neutral or positive attitude towards the bombing, as a lot of the dramatic effects are wholly based on garnering sympathy towards the character because of this attitude. This is quite simply the result of the short length of the manga. Only being about a hundred pages long, there really is no time for any in-depth character depiction, meaning that they cannot be sympathised with as characters, only, if at all, as victims. The Town of Evening Calm, The Country of Cherry Blossoms does, however, do a fair job at approaching its subject from multiple angles, especially when not looking at the main story, especially in the second part. A good example would be that of Nanami's friend Touko who gets physically ill at what she sees when visiting the memorial museum and reflects on what this says about her, who, as a nurse should be de-sensitised to human suffering (and which may, if one likes, be contrasted to Minami's self-declared de-sensitisation). As has been referred to in this thread, there remains a sense of not talking about the issue (just as, in a very real sense, Basil Fawlty's 'Don't mention the war!' often still holds true) that is referred to and which may be contrasted to the clearly generally optimistic sense of reconstruction also portrayed and a notion that stuff happens and life goes on. Graphically, far from using an overly simple drawing style, it could instead very well be seen as an experiment in coupling drawing styles to narrated content. The main, somewhat value-neutral narrative in the book's 'now' uses a style that may be strong-lined and crisp, but that shows a lot of background detail when necessary and keeps to a strong sense of cleanliness is altered by literally gritty realism or, on the other hand, a more fluid and symbolic style wherein background and foreground start to fuse in overly simplistic slabs when the 'past' is shown. The efforts really pay off, as the different styles of drawing very well strengthen the changes in narrative that they accompany and the pacing of the happenings, which is quite difficult to do in manga. Thinking about it, I believe I might have been a bit harsh on the manga when rating it a 6. Even if you don't like the drawing style, it's clear that good use is made of it in depicting various elements. The characters, while there is simply too little time to get to know much about them, appear to be rather realistic and are portrayed as juggling with differing feelings in a fairly rational manner. There is just really not much that is mentioned or happens, nothing that gives pause for thought or that experiments with characters or setting. I felt that too much in appreciating this manga is dependent on one's valuation of the bomb and its effects and too little on a critical dissection of its story and characters. |
| You do not beg the sun for mercy. |
| I disagree that you have to have some sort of moral opinion on the dropping of the atomic bomb to appreciate town of evening calm. You do need to feel sympathy for the characters that went through it, but why is that exclusive to people who are morally opposed to the bombing? There's no arguing that the majority of people killed were civilians who were not prepared to go through something like that. I've been pro-bomb since high school, but I found it pretty easy to sympathize with Minami's trauma and bitterness. The way her life is portrayed is on the idyllic side, like a caricature of a peaceful, country life, so I do agree that most of what would draw sympathy for her is the fact that she is a victim. |
| Most likely this isn't the place to start a discussion on the yeahs and nays of the bombing, and most likely it isn't necessary to do so at all, as, most likely, it boils down to a question of definitions. I'm guessing that what you referred to was the political and military expediency and/or necessity to drop and the political and military (and mayhap even moral) effects of the bombing. But that's not what I mentioned: I talked about the bombing itself, something quite apart from the wider socio-political background. |
| You do not beg the sun for mercy. |
| Hmm. I'm not sure what you're saying. santetjan said: The use of that subject almost assumes from the start a certain disposition of the audience towards it and works from it: it leaves little room for appreciation of the happenings if the audience has a value-neutral or positive attitude towards the bombing This is what i was referring to. You weren't talking about the reader's views on the military necessity of dropping the bomb? If you put that aside, I can't really see anyone having a positive view of the bombing itself. |
| Apologies for the late reply (as always...). I added 'positive' for completeness: I can hardly imagine anyone rejoicing in the direct effects of the bomb (apart, perhaps, from general misanthropes or a type of racist, xenophobe or what have you). Hardly, as there is one reason when considering that what we have here is a fictionalised account, though this may only follow from what I denoted as 'neutral'. The thing is, it is, generally, very easy to have a completely neutral stance towards human suffering, on a small or large scale - when it concerns fiction or some unknown reality. My problem with fiction such as this one is that it takes for granted that mentioning an actual happening will provoke a reaction that can almost be called ingrained. Specifically, in the case of mentioning the atomic bomb, the reaction will almost surely one be of some horror, disagreement or sympathy for the persons involved, notwithstanding one's stance with regard to the wider reasons, in a manner like what you yourself referred to ('but I found it pretty easy to sympathize with Minami's trauma and bitterness'), without really needing to make the fictional character involved endearing enough that the audience will feel sympathy towards the character because of the character itself. By means of experiment, try and see what happens when the real-life references are taken from this manga. Suppose it plays on Mars, and the main character is simply the victim of the new super weapon by an archetypal Evil Empire, the Zwork. Would we still be able to sympathise with a character we hardly know? By and large, the attitude towards such a fictional event will be leaning towards neutrality, even if the Zwork were to be a brutal weapon of martian destruction. To be involved in any way with our character's plight in such a story, we need more information, more background. In principle, there's nothing wrong with using an actual event, but even then, I think that an account needs more to be considered a worthy tale or telling in and of itself than to try and evoke some response by referencing that event. |
| You do not beg the sun for mercy. |
| I see what you're saying, but for me at least, it's not so much the mentioning of the event that incited a reaction. Growing up as an American, Hiroshima was never made personal in any history curriculum. We saw pictures of destroyed buildings, got some numerical figures of the destruction, but nothing microscale. In contrast, we got gruesome details and plenty of 1st person accounts on the holocaust, and even the rape of nanking. So when I found Minami's guilt and bitterness realistic and touching, that's only through my own projection of what a human would do in that situation; i have no survivor interviews to reference. In this sense, because i know so little about the social impact of the bomb, I sympathize with the characters the same way I would with any other fictional characters. I think if it was in a fictional setting, it would perhaps be less enlightening, but no less touching to me. |
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