Reception
The story was praised by the award jury of the Japan Media Arts Festival for its brevity and its "depiction of 'the dark shadow of war'". According to Izumi Evers, one of the editors of the English edition, the Japanese edition created a sensation despite being little-promoted because it made readers want to talk about the bombing of Hiroshima, which is a controversial topic. The manga sold over 180,000 copies in Japan.
The simple artwork and story's "light, ephemeral touch" was praised by Dirk Deppey in The Comics Journal, and PopCultureShock called the character designs "slightly rough, clumsy", which they consider makes the characters "more human and more believable" because they are "more vulnerable, more imperfect, more fragil". PopCultureShock also praised the background art, which "bring the streets of Hiroshima to vivid life". Manga News described the apparently simplistic art as beautiful, which emphasizes the story's depth without ever going over-the-top or into excess morality. Comic World News called the story "humane" and "profoundly moral", and praised the characterization as being "real". Otaku USA described the scenes of daily life as "welcoming" and the art "lovely", saying the "antiwar message is unspoken, and comes naturally from the desire not to see the characters die." A review at About.com described it as a "deeply moving story" that's "told in whispers rather than screams," and praised Kōno for resisting "the urge to pile on the melodrama" and so conveying "a deeply moving story." Manga: The Complete Guide called the work "a beautiful manga and an understated antiwar statement", praising its "dreamlike and evocative" stories and its artwork, especially the "lovely" backgrounds.
Publishers Weekly named the English translation one of best ten manga of 2007, calling it "too important to pass up" and comparing it to Barefoot Gen, and New York Magazine named it one of the top five comics in English of 2007. The American Library Association placed the manga on its list of "Great Graphic Novels for Teens 2008". It was nominated for an Eisner Award in two categories, Best Short Story for "Town of Evening Calm" and Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Japan, but lost to "Mr. Wonderful" by Dan Clowes and Tekkonkinkreet respectively.
According to Patrick Macias, an English editor of the manga, the film was "kind of ignored" at Cannes because of competition from other high-profile Japanese films. According to a review in Asia Pacific Arts, during the sequence when the father returns to Hiroshima, the film shows "an interaction" of the past, present, and future, which is indicative of "the slipperiness of memory", a technique that "makes more visible and effective the ongoing resonance of the past in the present" but that "rejects the politics of the bombing" of the first part of the film. Kumiko Aso won several acting awards in Japan for her role as Minami Hirano.
Read more about this topic: Town Of Evening Calm, Country Of Cherry Blossoms
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