In This Corner of the World

Story – 9 Draw – 8 Characters – 9 Enjoyment - 9 Overall - 9 Kono sekai no katasumi ni is one of that tough stories that touch you deep. With this manga Kouno Fumiyo show us the life of a young woman from Hiroshima during World War II. The story begins with the announcement of the convenience wedding of the main character, Suzu, with a man from Kure, a military port near Hiroshima. She must leave her hometown and go with her husband to livewith her family in law. All the story consists in the daily life of Suzu in her new home, during these years of war, fear, misery and lack of all kind of goods. The draw art is very simple but beautiful. This work is full of wonderful scenes and pretty drawings. The development of the characters is really good, they all grow and react in different ways. There are many problems they must face including poverty, American air raids and some accidents. It’s very nice how some characters realize many things about each other. My favorite is when Suzu discovered the embarrassing secret of her husband’s past. I really enjoyed this sad story. There were many interesting things and the stressful feeling it gives is amazing. It was also nice the anxiety you have, because you worry about the characters knowing what could happen in the war, but you don’t know until the end, what will happen.

I read the manga about 5 years ago and found it delightful in the beginning and deeply moving later. I was glad to see the many details of the traditional life of ordinary Japanese people in the period leading up to and encompassing WWII, and I loved little Suzu and her artistic development and sensibility. The art is memorably sweet and evocative of the fragility of young girlhood, and the main character is one of the most lovable I've experienced in manga simply because she is so honest, simple, and unaffected. The manga's depiction of the way of life of ordinary Japanese people in the periodprior to WWII is fascinating. Ditto is the growing sense that the manga conveys, as it develops, that Japan, at the stage of industrial development it had reached then, had "bitten off more than it could chew" in entering a war with the USA. All this is depicted simply by the contrast between the people's simple manner of living pre-war, and the deep privation they had to endure to support their faltering war machine in the end. Be prepared for heartbreak in the last third of the story.

In This Corner of the World – Spoiler Free – Recommended TLDR Story – 5/10 – 5 x 0.275 = 1,375 Art – 8/10 – 8 x 0.2 = 1,6 Characters – 5/10 – 5 x 0.225 = 1,125 Enjoyment – 6/10 – 6 x 0.3 = 1,8 Total: 5,9 -> 6 Story – 5/10In This Corner of the World is a manga about survival and overcoming difficulties. The manga's time span is during the 40s, when we follow a girl – called Urano – as she marries a soldier who serves in the Navy. It ultimately aims to depict civilian lives at the end of the war, and how it affected them. We follow short episodic stories that describe how things went. It also has a high educational and pedagogic intent, as there are multiple informative notes throughout the manga. There isn't a coherent story, but more of fragments of a pedagogic and episodic slice-of-life during the last years of the war. There is also, obviously, a depiction of what happened before the drop of the bomb on Hiroshima, as the story is passed in the vicinity of the city. Moreover, we know that this will happen from the beginning, as the table of contents includes August 1945 as one of the chapters (more than one, actually). However, the story isn't all gloomy, as there are multiple moments that inspire hope for the future and that everyone may return alive, even when things look the bleakest, to help lighten the story, not overburdening the reader with constant depression – although, personally, I wouldn't have seen it as a bad thing. There are also some chapters that are passed after the war, which can mostly be seen in, once again, a pedagogic fashion to teach the reader what truly happened in those times. Art – 8/10 This one is the strongest point in this manga. In This Corner of the World, having a unique but simple art style is absolutely gorgeous, especially when it comes to the landscapes and the aeroplanes. The cadence of the panels isn't that good, however, making the story rather confusing at times. Moreover, the nature of most chapters – which are very short – doesn't help in the overall scenario of things and in following the story. Character design isn't particularly enticing. Characters – 5/10 Characters aren't the main focus of In This Corner of the World: it is true that there are main characters, Urano and her husband, but in no way, shape or form are they the centre of the action: what's important is the livelihood of the people during the last years of the war and how it shaped the lives of everyone involved: the agony, the suffering, and the dying people of Japan. In this sense, the main characters represent a universal character – the common people –, and ought to be represented as such. Enjoyment – 6/10 In This Corner of the World is a manga about war and the repercussions of war in the daily life of the common people. It is a slice-of-life mixed with the pedagogical and informative dimension; it's quasi episodic nature also doesn't help in creating a coherent story, as, as already stated, it is a collection of small fragments more than a story in itself. Although not the most engaging, the story is interesting enough to keep the reader from leaving. It is nevertheless unique enough to deserve a recommendation, although close to a mixed-feeling stamp.