Kouno, Fumiyo. Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (Yûnagi no machi sakura no kuni), ed. by Patrick Macias and Colin Turner. Trans. by Naoko Amemiya and Andy Nakatani. Design and retouch by Izumi Evers. English translation rights in USA arranged through jaPRESS and Last Gasp. San Francisco, CA: Last Gasp, 2006 (Japan: Futabasha Publishers Co., Ltd., 2003).
Reviewed by Vanessa Raney 

"I think I decided to go ahead and do this project because this whole time, somewhere deep inside, I've been feeling that it is unnatural and irresponsible to remain disconnected from this issue--or rather, that it is unnatural and irresponsible for me to consciously try to avoid this issue. Although I was born and raised in Hiroshima, I am neither a hibakusha survivor of the atomic bomb, nor am I a second generation hibakusha." - Fumyo Kouno, from the "Afterward"

The two-page spread that opens Kouno's three-part manga shows colorful watercolor washes. On the right page, a girl in a green and white dress holds an instrument on her lap as she sits atop a sculptural object, her bare feet dangling. The footnote to "Yûnagi," on the bottom left page, explains that it "is a term for a windless calm that settles in during the evening after sea breezes die down and before inland winds begin to blow." This offers a foreboding against the tranquility of what the reader will discover to be a partial cityscape of Hiroshima. The reader will likewise find out that the woman is Minami Hirano, and the dress a symbol of her unfulfilled desires.

Even if unintentionally, in the first section ("Town of Evening Calm/Yûnagi no Machi"), Kouno associates Minami's inability to reconcile her experience as a hibakusha with the onslaught of atomic illness at the moment she's prepared to accept love. Minami's flashback to the day of the bombing (see pp. 22-25) as Lichikoshi kisses her - the psychological basis for her survivor's guilt - precedes this. Later, Minami tells Lichikoshi: "Let me talk about what happened ten years ago" (6:28 ). She collapses, however, when he says, preparing to embrace her hand: "...Thank you for surviving" (6:29).

Toward the end of the story, in the third section ("Cherry Blossoms 2/Sakura no Kuni Part 1"), Minami's brother Asahi Ishikawa shares with his daughter Nanami the significance of Minami's death: "This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of my longest surviving sister" (1:98 ). Kouno, however, throws off the reader in the second section ("Cherry Blossoms 1/Sakura no Kuni Part 1") when she breaks from the previous storyline to focus on Nanami and her girlhood friend Toko Tone.

Nanami's facial expression on the title page for section two recalls the one of Minami in the opening. However, Nanami also appears like a tree nymph with cherry blossoms pinned to her hair, her right foot up on a branch with her other foot on the tree's base, and her plain collarless shoulderless dress. The environment of the cherry blossom tree similarly contrasts against the twilight of a starful sky in the previous.

The tone in this section, too, presents the joys of growing up. According to Kouno's "Explanation by author": "Country of Cherry Blossoms (Sakura no Kuni) Part I is set in 1987 in Tokyo's Nakano District" (100). However, "Part II is set in the summer of 2004" (100). In section 3, Toko tells Nanami as they share a train to Hiroshima: "I recognized you right away even after 17 years" (6:62). The reader, however, is left wondering about the cause of the break and Nanami's earlier hostility at her brother Nagio's mention of Toko.

The hint of time's passing happens earlier with the siblings' references to their jobs. However, all of the characters still look the same, which may lull Western readers into thinking that Nanami and Toko are still children. As Nanami and Nagio separately shadow their dad because of their concern over his odd behaviors, Nanami and Toko find each other again as their separate pursuits align them over men important to them at this stage of their lives: Nanami's father, and Nagio.

Recalling Minami's flashbacks to Hiroshima, in section 3, Asahi's recurring flashbacks take him back to his pursuit of hibakusha Kyoka Ota for "a wife" (3:92). By this time, Kouno has cleverly let the reader in on the connection between his flashbacks and the present. Before Nanami thinks that "No one ever explicitly said that my mom died at 38 because of the atomic bomb" (5:86), Asahi's mom shares her concern that "I don't want to see any more people I know die from the atomic bomb" (7:84) after Asahi informs her of his intentions to marry Kyoka.

Koko's reaction "to the Peace Musem" (3:78 ), however, has a direct association with Kouno. In the "Afterward," Kouno explains: "I felt reluctant [about doing this manga] because when I was a student, there were a number of times when I nearly fainted- at the Peace Memorial Museum and when seeing footage of the bomb. It caused quite a commotion and ever since, I've tried to avoid anything related to the bomb" (103).

More significantly, however, Kouno's manga addresses the question: What happens when there's no one left to bear witness to Hiroshima (and Nagasaki)? Often, when people relate this question to the Holocaust, it is assumed that (1) only the dead can bear witness, (2) only those who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust firsthand can bear witness, or (3) only generations brought up under the umbrella of the Holocaust can bear witness. There is, however, scholarship that addresses the role and impact of witnessing from outsiders.

Kouno - as other contemporary Holocaust/genocide/etc. artists - shows that witnessing does not require the lived experience of horror, but the desire to face our pasts. For Japan, the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are more real than to us outside of Japan (except for the foreigners who were in Japan during the bombings and/or their aftermaths) - because we don't know what it is to still be dying even years after an event, with the exception of those who faced Agent Orange and other chemical wars.

Kuono reminds us that death is omnipresent with the experiences of joy. Many Japanese, too, have had to relive the pain of the bombings as they (re)witness(ed) the deaths of loved ones because of atomic illnesses resulting from the massive amounts of radiation unleashed during the bombings. It is time that we, like Minami, confront our pasts.

Kuono's Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms is available for $9.99 plus S&H from Last Gasp. The direct URL is: http://www.lastgasp.com/d/28619/. This manga is about remembering - so buy it and share your thoughts! After all, it is important that we, too, carry the burden of witnessing. More importantly, we cannot deny our roles in the continuing suffering of people affected by our wars.

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