In This Corner of the World

In This Corner of the World
The cover of the first volume of the manga
この世界の片隅に
(Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni)
Manga
Written by Fumiyo Kōno
Published by Futabasha
English publisher
Demographic Seinen
Magazine Weekly Manga Action
Original run 2007 – 2009
Volumes 3
Live-action television film
Directed by Toya Sato
Produced by Tomio Nishimuta
Makoto Morikawa
Yoshiyuki Watanabe
Written by Taeko Asano
Music by Takeshi Onishida
Released August 5, 2011
Runtime 144 minutes
Anime film

In This Corner of the World (この世界の片隅に, Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni) is a manga series written and illustrated by Fumiyo Kōno which ran from 2007 to 2009 in Weekly Manga Action. It follows the life of Suzu Urano, a young bride with her new family living on the outskirts of Kure City during the Second World War. It was translated by JManga under the title To All the Corners of the World.[1] After JManga closed, Futabasha published the manga digitally and made it available to read on BookWalker, a digital manga store and app. It was later licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment for release in North America with the original title.[2] It was adapted into a live-action television special.

An anime theatrical film adaptation was released in 2016.[3] A TV live action series was broadcast on TBS from July 2018.[4]

Plot

The story follows Suzu, an innocent young Japanese woman who is a talented illustrator who lives in Hiroshima and Kure, Japan during World War II. When Suzu was 18, she worked for a small family business when an unknown young man suddenly proposed to her. The man, Shūsaku, lived in Kure as a navy civilian, remembered seeing Suzu ten years ago, with fantastic experiences. Suzu married him, moved to Kure, and joined Shūsaku's family. However, dark clouds of the war against US were approaching and threatening the ordinary Japanese people.

Kure, a large port city, is located within one hour by local train from Hiroshima. The port is facing Seto Inland Sea and widely known as the largest military base of Imperial Japanese Navy. As Japan was losing to the U.S., living conditions in Japan were getting worse and U.S. military forces were threatening ordinary Japanese people.

In spite of the food shortage, Suzu made efforts to get over the hard conditions during the wartime and also to prepare to mitigate the bombing damage. In 1945, U.S. air raids started and heavily attacked warships and naval facilities and the city areas in Kure. Suzu was wondering if she will return to the hometown (Eba) in Hiroshima, not yet bombed, from the house of Kure. When Suzu was still in Kure, August 6, 1945, the atomic bombing horribly destroyed countless human beings and everything in Hiroshima.

Like a lot of Japanese, Suzu could not avoid inevitable tragedy, brought by the war, and the war deprived Suzu of the precious persons, and also "an irreplaceable part of her body" which is her right hand, for her dominance and reliability towards it. When the war was over nine days after the atomic bombing, the family started the new lives at the time of new born Japan. Suzu regained the motivation to get through, for her and others, with courage and affection, in one corner of the world.

Characters

  • Suzu – Got married in her teens and moved from her hometown in Hiroshima to Shūsaku's home in Kure. An innocent character and good at drawing. She made efforts to overcome a lot of difficulties during the wartime but later hit by tragedy.
  • Shūsaku – Suzu's husband. Earnest and quiet person. A judicial officer at Military Court in Kure.
  • Harumi – Around 5 year old girl. Suzu's niece. Keiko's daughter. Killed by U.S. bomb in Kure, when walking with Suzu.
  • Keiko – Shūsaku's sister and a widow. Harumi's mother.
  • Tetsu – Suzu's friend from childhood. He had good memories with Suzu. A navy sailor of the Japanese cruiser Aoba.
  • Sumi – Suzu's younger sister. Later got seriously ill caused by atomic-bomb radiation in Hiroshima.
  • Entarō – Shūsaku's father. An engineer of Hiro Naval Arsenal.
  • San – Shūsaku's mother.
  • Jūrō – Suzu's father. He owned a family business to cultivate and trade seaweeds but later became a factory worker. Later got seriously ill caused by atomic-bomb radiation in Hiroshima and died.
  • Kiseno – Suzu's mother. Missing after the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, and probably killed.
  • Yōichi – Suzu's elder brother. As a soldier sent to an island of the battles in the southern Pacific Ocean. Reported to be killed in action.
  • Rin/Lin - A courtesan working in the red light district of Kure. When she was younger Lin used the rooftop of Suzu's grandparents to take refuge. There she briefly met Suzu, who offered her a watermelon. Late on in her life, she meets Suzu again in the city of Kure due to Suzu getting lost on her way back to the house. They form some kind of friendship.

Media

Live-action television special

It was adapted into a live-action television special which aired 5 August 2011 on NTV, starring Keiko Kitagawa as Suzu Urano, Keisuke Koide as Shūsaku Hōjō, Yūka as Rin Shiroki, Mokomichi Hayami as Tetsu Mizuhara, Ryo as Keiko, Saburō Shinoda as Entarō Hōjō, Yoshie Ichige as San Hōjō, and Mana Ashida as Chizuko Hōjō.[5][6]

Anime film

The film was directed by Sunao Katabuchi.[7]

TV Series

The live action series will start airing every Sunday starting July 2018 from 21:00 (JST) on TBS. Tori Matsuzaka will play Shusaku Hojo and Matsumoto Honoka and Miu Arai will play Suzu, both adult and young. Other members of the cast include Machiko Ono, Tomorowo Taguchi, Ran Ito, Sairi Ito, Kaho Tsuchimura, and Sayu Kubota. The screenwriter is Yoshikazu Okada (Churasan, Hiyokko), Nobuhiro Doi (Quartet) is directing the series, and the music will be provided by Joe Hisaishi.[4]

Reception

The manga was a Jury Recommended Work in the 2008 Japan Media Arts Festival,[8] and the following year, it won the Excellence Prize.[9] A "folktale-like" tone has been noted in the work, and Kouno's humour has been praised.[10]

The TV special received a rating of 12.7.[11]

The manga had over 1 million copies in print as of March, 2018. [12]

References

  1. ↑ "JManga Site Launches with Works Never Printed in U.S." Anime News Network. August 17, 2011. Retrieved October 27, 2012.
  2. ↑ "Seven Seas Licenses In This Corner of the World Historical Manga". Anime News Network. April 7, 2017. Retrieved April 12, 2017.
  3. ↑ "'To All The Corners Of The World' Manga Gets Anime Film". Anime News Network. August 17, 2012. Retrieved August 18, 2012.
  4. 1 2 "In This Corner of the World Gets Live Action Series". MANGA.TOKYO. May 8, 2018. Retrieved May 8, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Wartime Manga Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni Gets TV Special". Anime News Network. June 12, 2011. Retrieved October 27, 2012.
  6. ↑ この世界の片隅に：戦時下の日常描いた話題のマンガ 北川景子主演でドラマ化 (in Japanese). Mantanweb. June 13, 2011. Retrieved October 27, 2012.
  7. ↑ Bamboo Dong (December 9, 2014). "Interview: Sunao Katabuchi". Anime News Network. Retrieved December 10, 2014.
  8. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-08-11. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
  9. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-04-04. Retrieved 2017-01-17.
  10. ↑ "Japanese Book News Vol. 63" (PDF). Retrieved October 27, 2012.
  11. ↑ "Japan's Animation TV Ranking, August 1–7". Anime News Network. August 15, 2011. Retrieved October 27, 2012.
  12. ↑ http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2018/03/20-1/in-this-corner-of-the-world-manga-to-get-live-action-serial-tv-drama-this-summer
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