I’ve been interested in twentieth-century history for as long as I can remember – before my fascination with Japanese popular culture even began I was drawn to the issues surrounding the atomic bombings of 1945. Fumiyo Kouno is one of many writers and artists who have taken on the subject but her approach is one that conveys the human cost of the events in an unusual way. Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms is a short, surprisingly sweet but nevertheless powerful work.

Her graphic novel is not an historical document. The whimsical slice-of-life angle doesn’t prevent it being meaningful though: fundamentally, history is about people and the relevance today of the events that occured then. This story is therefore very relevant even though the individual stories of this event are fictional; it also manages to convey hard-hitting subject matter with subtlety and restraint.

I’m neither American nor Japanese, and the bombings happened over thirty years before I was born so I feel a little uncomfortable with forming an opinion on it. My feelings on the events are strong, if mixed: my gut reaction is that the bombings should never have happened at all. On a detached analytical level, a weapon that destroys so much indescriminately has very limited practical use; on a more straightforward, human level I simply can’t accept the killing of other human beings on such a scale.

In reality, the background is more complicated: wartime atrocities of varying magnitudes were carried out by both Japan and USA so it’s naïve and over-simplifying to say that the attacks were morally right or wrong. They certainly brought a quicker end to the war, saving lives on both sides, but even though Hiroshima was a military target many of the bomb’s victims were civilians so it still doesn’t sit right with me. But then, I’d be judging people from another time and place by my own standards; I can’t imagine what went through the minds of those who made the decision.

The moral and ethical questions will probably never be answered so the best solution I can come up with is for us to learn from it and ensure it never happens again. It cannot be undone so, if nothing else, this way the suffering of those involved will mean something. Kouno doesn’t explore the US point of view, nor does she give the bigger picture regarding who started the war and how. It’s about one town – Hiroshima – and its inhabitants who were affected.

The first chapter follows one of the hibakusha trying to get on with her life ten years after the bombing: survivors of the attack were troubled over being unable to explain how they survived, and some felt guilt for escaping what claimed the lives of people they knew. One scene is a flashback of the aftermath drawn in shocking detail but until the last few pages of the chapter it returns to a relative feeling of normality. The closing dialogue is particularly moving and leans strongly towards highlighting the victims’ plight but I view it as merely conveying the point of view of one character, as opposed to voicing whatever opinion Kouno herself had.

The other two pick up the tale later on with associated friends and family in the years that follow. It effectively sets up a sense of continuity in bringing the course of events nearer to the present and shows that the events of 1945 continue to resonate after all this time, whether or not it’s outwardly evident. The fact that it’s already forgotten by the younger generation was I think a principal message of the novel, although the idea that life goes on is another significant point made here.

I initially found the art to be rough, sketchy and almost childlike. This simplicity brings the characters and their environment to life and, as some critics pointed out, adds an appropriate sense of fragility to them. The resulting innocent and harmless atmosphere also makes the really sad and shocking moments all the more powerful; the fact that the storytelling avoids heavy-handed sentimentality or biased moralising is an important part of why it’s such a readable piece.

Apart from those disturbing depictions of the bomb’s after-effects in the opening chapter the story does not show the incident itself. It’s instead concerned with the everyday: relationships, growing up, deciding what to do with your life…ordinary things of course but made somewhat extraordinary given the looming shadow in the background. The fact that this looming shadow is merely alluded to allows the narrative and the significance of its events room to breathe.

It goes without saying that this is, in parts, a sad story. Tragic things happen but what makes it more interesting and therefore more effective is that it’s not altogether sad. I recently outlined how a completely downbeat tone is counter-productive and this is a case in point: there’s no longer much value in reiterating how devastating the Hiroshima bombing was. Showing how lives were affected, on the other hand, is very valuable in understanding why it should be remembered.

Kouno explains in her afterword that although Hiroshima is her home town she’s not a hibakusha; she wrote the story because people outside of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even those elsewhere in Japan, didn’t know the details about what the bombings meant for those who lived there. I admit that I don’t know anything outside of what history lessons and TV documentaries taught me so getting a feel for this, even from a fictionalised second-hand source, is helpful in this understanding.

The success, for me, of Kouno’s story is that Hiroshima is not portrayed as a mere dot on a map or a dead monument to history that needs to be mourned. It’s depicted as a living, vibrant town and although there are moments of tragedy and loss, it never descends into melodrama. It reminds us that the town and its people are alive and very much a part of this world – a world that should not dwell on the past or forget it either.