Yuunagi no Machi Sakura no Kuni
Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms

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This manga is an historical piece about the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing. Obviously, it's not completely uplifting, but it has its moments. Overall, however, I found a lot of it fairly predictable and not all that eye-opening, in terms of giving me some additional historical competence. I was hoping to feel like I'd been to post-war Hiroshima after reading this, but I just felt like I'd read a comic book. Bummer.

Nevertheless, it's not a complete waste of time. It's cute in parts, touching in parts, and if you're into historical drama, it's worth picking up.

Town of Evening Calm is a glimpse of how the survivors of the atomic bomb cope up with its aftermath, a period when Japan is still slowly recovering from the damage it received during wartime. The manga is beautifully drawn, forming a lighthearted atmosphere that fits well with the melancholic narrative. It reminds me a lot of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou.

The manga is split into two stories that are connected. The cast of the first story is the Hirano family, and how they dealt with the loss of family members and rebuilding their lives again. One observation by the main character Hirano Minami is that ... people carry on their lives normally like everyone forgot about the tragedy of the bombing already. Can one pursue a happy life despite having the guilt of not saving someone close to you? The rest of the story details Minami’s struggle of trying to accept the past and move forward

The second story focuses on Asahi’s side of the story, who is Minami’s brother. The story takes place years later after the first one yet it frequently transitions back and forth from past to present. The rest of the story details the revisiting of the past, similar to the first story but in a more positive manner.

What makes this manga great is that it doesn’t focus on the ugly and tragic side of post-war events too much. We always see post-war stories that are depressing in nature but this particular manga emulates an atmosphere of melancholy and hope in it. It portrays a person’s nature to still have a glimmer of positivity despite being haunted by the past. Overall, it’s a fleeting yet insightful reading experience.

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms – Spoiler Free – Not Recommended

TLDR
Overall: 5/10

Disclaimer: due to the nature of this work – a collection of two separate stories –, my normal parameters of Story, Art, Characters and Enjoyment with a weighted average won’t be applied. Instead, a global overview will be offered.

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms is a very short manga by Fumiyo Kouno. It presents itself as a historical manga about the aftermath of the Second World War in Japan, most specifically the bombing of Hiroshima.
To this end, it is comprised of two separate stories: 1) Town of Evening ... Calm, and 2) Country of Cherry Blossoms.
The first story deals with the aftermath of the people of Hiroshima – 10 years later –, and the condition of living plummeted, offering a bleak scenario. The second story, on the other hand, is passed in Hiroshima in 2004 – June 2004, to be more precise –, as it covers the new living conditions of what remained, while transitioning occasionally to the past.
Basically, this manga is about hope and the idea that no matter how bleak things are, they can still work out for the best. It is also uninteresting in most of its part, as its slice-of-life approach doesn’t cover the major impact of the war on the populations – it is, in a way, a worse version of In This Corner of the World, which is actually from the same author. This is probably the best parallelism for this manga: a less informative and less enticing In This Corner of the World.
However, it does cover a “positive” side of the people facing calamity: hope and resilience.
Most of the story is foreseeable, and there aren’t any moments worth mentioning. It is also pretty forgettable.
The art style is quite good, and is closely akin to In This Corner of the World, which makes sense. The page flow is average, and the cadence of the panels is average as well. Character design doesn’t matter – as there aren’t that many characters, to begin with – and the landscapes are well-conceived.
Although it is hard in such a short manga to produce well-developed characters, it is nevertheless the reality that this manga produces very forgettable characters that are merely placeholders: they could have been anyone else.
Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms is a manga that doesn’t satisfy the reader, nor does it grip us. Actually, quite on the contrary: although very short, one wonders when it will end. Because it is uninteresting and is, by all accounts, a bad slice of life that only has as its saving grace the period and the topic outtalks about (which is fascinating in itself), it doesn’t deserve a recommendation.