Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms

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 EveningCalm, 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.