Yunagi City, Sakura Country (2007)

Name: Yunagi City, Sakura Country
Released: 2007-07-28

1h 58m

Running Time

July 28, 2007
Release Date

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Plot.

Thirteen years afterward, I wonder if those who bombed Hiroshima are looking at me and saying: 'We did it! We were able to kill another person!' They should be," murmurs Minami (played by Kumiko Aso), one of the two leading female characters in Yunagi no Machi, Sakura no Kuni, as she lies dying in 1958, her life brought to a premature end by sickness resulting from her exposure to atomic bomb radiation. This is a story about those who at least initially survived the first U.S. atomic bombing of 1945 and their descendants in contemporary times. The film, based on a comic by Fumiyo Kono, jumps between the two time frames and quietly depicts the sorrow and mortification experienced through the everyday lives of laid-back and soft-spoken Hiroshima people. Only a few scenes of the bombing and the ensuing devastation are featured.

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Details.

Release Date
July 28, 2007

Original Name
夕凪の街桜の国

Status
Released

Running Time
1h 58m

Last updated: 2025-02-12

Wiki.

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (Japanese: 夕凪の街桜の国, Hepburn: Yūnagi no Machi, Sakura no Kuni) is a one-volume manga written and illustrated by Fumiyo Kōno. The two connected stories were first published in Japan by Futabasha in Weekly Manga Action in 2003 and 2004, then collected in a single tankōbon volume in 2004. The story is about a family of survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The author based the characters on people who were in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms was adapted as a live-action film directed by Kiyoshi Sasabe released in 2007, called Yunagi City, Sakura Country in English. It has also been adapted as a 2006 radio drama, as 2007 novels by Kei Kunii and Yohei Makita, as a 2017 stage play and as a 2018 television special.

The manga has received international praise for its simple but beautiful artwork and its quiet but "humane" anti-war message. It received the Grand Prize for manga at the 2004 Japan Media Arts Festival and the 2005 Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Creative Award. Kumiko Asō won several acting awards for her portrayal of Minami Hirano, one of the two protagonists, in the film adaptation.