Anime as Art

In This Corner of the World (Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni) is a film about a woman named Suzu living in Japan during the height of World War 2, as Japanese society slowly crumbles around her. Further complicating the film is the fact that the film is partly set in Hiroshima and in Kure (a port city close to Hiroshima). adding an oppressive layer of dramatic tension because we can only wait and see how the atomic bomb drop will affect Suzu and her family.

It’s worth mentioning Mai Mai Miracle (2009)(which, incidentally, is only legally available in English through crowdfunding) because it reveals a lot about Katabuchi’s sensibilities as a director. It’s a film that shares many thematic similarities to Kono Sekai, touching on nostalgia (as both are set in Japan’s past), the nature of imagination and mediated experiences, and the experience of being in transition. But more importantly, both films use the power of animation to address these themes in a visually striking manner, using visual metaphors to expressively bring the audience into the mind of the main characters.

While Mai Mai Miracle asks us to enter into the world of the imagination through Shinko’s whimsical thoughts via her unruly cowlick which she calls a “mai mai”, Kono Sekai grounds these visuals through Suzu’s background as an aspiring artist. Early in the film we see Suzu draw a series of pictures depicting an adventure she had in Hiroshima involving an Ogre that tries to kidnap her and another little boy. As Suzu recounts this story to her sister, the film transitions from the realistic, cleanly animated art style of the film to the crude and unsophisticated drawings that Suzu produces, signalling to us that perspective and point of view are entirely subjective experiences.

We see this again when a Tetsu, a young classmate, asks Suzu to paint a picture for him. As Tetsu describes his bitter feelings toward the ocean, because his brother died when his ship sank, one of images that bothers him most about the ocean is the fact that the waves look like rabbits hopping in a field. The contrast between the anger over his personal loss and fits of fancy that his imagination takes him on is something that is difficult for him to reconcile, and we this dichotomy is made even more apparent through its depiction on the screen, as the scene transitions from the standard art-style of the film to the painterly art-style of Suzu’s painting. We can see how art has the power to capture the beauty of a tragic moment, as we see Tetsu’s negative feelings being swept away by the sea of rabbits hopping off into the distance.

The blend of visual styles, one representing the real world and the other representing the imaginary or the idyllic, pays off in the two most climatic moments of the film. The first is when Suzu and her niece Harumi are out in their garden as they are caught in the first air raid on Kure. As the bombers fly overhead and drop their payloads, the bombs and explosions turn into expressive looking fireworks being drawn by an unseen hand. What would have been a moment of horror is turned into a moment of beauty, as we can imagine Suzu being terrified but also mesmerized by the scene unfolding around her. It’s a scene that’s been depicted many times before in war films — the first that comes to mind is the scene where soldiers laugh at the exploding trees in Bastogne on an episode of Band of Brothers (2001)— but the nature of anime as a visual medium based on an artistic interpretation of reality lends itself wonderfully to a depiction of the shock and awe of living through a bombing. The simple act of changing the art style arrests us and forces us to confront what we are being asked to consume. Interiority is juxtaposed with exteriority, as we get to see how Suzu herself sees the world around her.

Later on in the film, after another bombing, a similar transition occurs as Suzu and Harumi are caught in an explosion. As Suzu realizes that they are standing next to an unexploded bomb and tries to pull Harumi away, the film offers a close up of their hands before a flash overwhelms the scene and leaves us in darkness. When the screen comes back to life, we see white outlines of Suzu and Harumi suffering through the blast as Suzu struggles to understand what has happened. The film relies on an artistic representation of the scene in order to convey its full impact, and seeing the outline of Harumi dissolve into an unrecognizable mess of white lines is enough for us to understand that Harumi has been killed and that she has lost her right arm — the arm that she draws and creates her art with. Again, it’s a scene that visually lets us into Suzu’s mind — we understand that the actual details are not important. The only thing that matters in this moment is the fact that Harumi is dead and that Suzu feels responsible for causing her death.

It’s telling that the film doesn’t switch between the realistic art-style used in most of the film to a more interpretative art-style after this point, because we understand that Suzu’s spark has been snuffed out by the trauma of this event. She has both lost a child that she cared for, and also the hand that allowed her to escape the war through her art. The next time we see a bombing, it’s depicted without any mediation — including a moment when a fighter plane circles around to try to strafe her. Even the inevitable dropping of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima is depicted matter-of-factly, with a simple flash of light followed by the tremors of the explosion’s aftershock. Death is depicted without mediation as well, as we see a mother and her daughter walk aimlessly out of the rubble of Hiroshima, only for the mother to pass out and die in front of her child. It’s only at the end of the film, when Suzu visits Hiroshima to see the aftermath of the bombing, where she remembers the story about the Ogre that she invented in her childhood and allows herself to dip back into the world of the imagination.

This is one of the films that answers the question “why anime?”. Yes, there is a live action version of Kono Sekai (a TV movie from 2011 which has seemingly been completely forgotten, at least on English language websites), but I can’t imagine that it would have been as effective as this film at conveying the psychological mindset of being a civilian caught in the war. This is a film that effectively uses animation to convey meaning, specifically allowing us into Suzu’s mind, in a manner that just wouldn’t be possible otherwise without compromises.

Indeed, the credit sequence affirms the power of art by showing a hand — perhaps Suzu’s missing hand — drawing scenes from Suzu’s childhood, showing a happier time when her immediate family was still alive (we learn that Suzu is the only one in her family that survives the war). As the credits end, the hand stops drawing and waves goodbye to the audience. It’s a striking final image that provides a catharsis for the emotional climax of the film — the past is gone, but not forgotten. Suzu learns to live on by embracing her new family of in-laws and by adopting an orphaned girl, but the loved ones she’s lost and the arm she is missing will always be in her memories, ready to be memorialized through art. It is then that we realize that the film itself is an artistic endeavour meant to give us a small slice of history, so that the suffering and perseverance of the survivors of World War 2 are not forgotten. The hand waves at us to say goodbye so that we can resume our lives in 2017, but it also asks us to remember all the sacrifices that were made to get us here.

I think it’s worth pointing out the film’s context, even if I don’t necessarily have any clean answers to resolve these issues with the film. The one unavoidable reality that the film largely ignores is that Japan is historically seen as the villain in World War 2, and indeed, in much of the early 20th century. Tensions between the various South East Asian powers still flare up in part due to the scars of the war and the Japanese colonization. Whether it’s denial of Japanese war crimes, or the enshrinement of the men responsible for these war crimes, I think it’s fair that Japan inability to fully reconcile with it’s dark past is a lingering, festering wound on the psyche of an entire region.

And so, the cynical part of me wondered if it was possible to sympathize with the events in the film considering the massive suffering that Japanese imperialism caused throughout the early 20th Century. At the moment, the only way that I’ve found to resolve this “problem” is to try to separate the political context from my enjoyment of the film. It’s not a pretty solution, but I don’t know if I can ever really find a way to resolve this particular issue.

I should probably note that I didn’t have the same problem with Grave of the Fireflies (1988) or the flashback scenes in Natsu no Arashi (2009), because of the fact that the main characters were clearly victims of circumstance (what could children do to stop the war?), and that I had absolutely no problems sympathizing with English bombing survivors in the recent film Their Finest (2016), which was in part about the German air raids on London.

Perhaps Kono Sekai itself offers a solution to this conundrum when it shows how Suzu reacts to the Emperor’s announcement of Japan’s formal surrender to the Allied forces. Everything she has gone through, all that she has lost — the fact that her brother was killed overseas, that her parents died in the Hiroshima blast, that her sister most likely died from exposure, and of course Harumi — was all in service to something bigger than her. We see that many of the characters in the film willingly sacrifice in order to contribute to the greater good of the society. So when Japan surrenders, everyone realizes that their sacrifices were for naught. Suzu runs away from the house after hearing the announcement, only to see Harumi’s mother sobbing outside as she finally mourns for her daughter. Suzu herself breaks down into tears as she decries violence itself, rather than any nation state.

It’s an easy out to take — inviting us to move on from history by attacking the nature of war itself — but maybe that’s the only way forward.

First, I have to admit upfront that I haven’t read the manga, so I don’t know how much of what I am about to say can be credited to the filmmakers and how much can be credited to Kouno. With that said, there are some aspects of the story that I wanted to talk about that just weren’t covered in my discussion of the film’s visuals or of the film’s historical context.

The film does an admirable job filling in the world without relying on exposition. Yes, it asks you to do some work by assuming that you are at least educated about the Second World War, but there are never scenes where characters stand around talking about the war in an expository manner. When the film opens in the 1930s with a young Suzu going to Hiroshima to sell her family’s dried seaweed, we see that it is Christmas time. There’s a man in a Santa suit spruiking for the market district, and people are seen doing their Christmas shopping, we get a picture of a more liberal time in Japanese history. The Japanese empire was still expanding, but they were still open to Western ideals at the time because the American embargoes weren’t in place yet. It reminds me of Taisho Yakyu Musume (2009), a series set in the 30s that featured an American teacher coaching a girl’s baseball team.

When the film skips forward in time to the 40s and Suzu moves to Kure, we get glimpses of war time life that explain the burden placed on civilians at the time — rationing, strict security measures and curfews, the reclamation of land and resources (Suzu’s family loses their seaweed business, and Suzu’s sister-in-law loses her business as well), the drafting of all of the men, and so on. We also get scenes showing how people would have coped, including a black market selling forbidden “luxuries” like a pencil colour set and watermelon, but also a red light district to essentially service all of the sailors who take shore leave in port. Certainly gone are the days when people celebrated Christmas. These aspects of life are presented as a representation of life in the 40s, without any judgement on part of the characters or the filmmakers — for Suzu and people living under these conditions, it was simply a fact of life.

We see how the war is progressing through the eyes of the characters as well. When Suzu first arrives in Kure, the port is bustling with many ships preparing to embark in campaigns in the Pacific. But as time progresses in the film, we see fewer and fewer ships, showing that Japan is on the losing side of the war. Similarly, when one of the few remaining boys in the town is drafted and sent off to war, only a handful of women are there to send him off. There isn’t even a chance for celebration, as this small ceremony is interrupted by an air raid siren that sends the small gathering of supporters scattering. Sure, we know that Japan loses the war, but even if we didn’t, these small moments help paint the picture of a war effort that is being stretched to its limits.

Suzu’s story stands out as well, as she is definitely not the star of a conventional romance. Her marriage to Shusaku is all but arranged — he says he saw her in town one day and had to marry her—which is exactly what happens when the film jumps forward in time. We’re not shown a courtship because there isn’t one. Their relationship could be described as an affectionate friendship, and they might like each other, but it’s not clear that they are in “love” with each other as we would expect from a convention romance.

The lack of true love in their relationship comes to a head when Suzu’s old friend Tetsu comes to visit her and Shusaku senses that she has a connection with him. Shusaku all but pushes Suzu and Tetsu together, forcing them to spend the night with each other by locking her out of their home, showing his graciousness in admitting defeat in the love triangle. The absurdity of the situation makes Suzu angry, as she and Shusaku are finally forced to confront the nature of their marriage. In the end, theirs is a companionate relationship rather than one built on extreme passion or love, but I think the subdued nature of their courtship fits very well with the story that is being told. The relationship isn’t the “star” of the story, and the film isn’t asking “will they or won’t they”. The relationship is simply a characterization of the life that Suzu leads, of enduring and finding small pleasures in the face of darkness.

The fact that the film is bookended by the appearance of the Ogre ties it all together. It’s implied that Shusaku met Suzu in Hiroshima on the trip we see in the opening of the film, and the story about the Ogre that Suzu tells her sister was actually about their first meeting. So when an adult Shusaku and Suzu meet in Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped, the Ogre walks past them and smiles at them. It’s a loop that closes on their story and perhaps allows us to believe that they were fated to be with each other, much like fairy tale characters, even if it seems like they were only together due to matters of circumstance. It’s also the first sign of recovery, of the return of the fantastical and the imaginary, and a sign that their renewed relationship signals a period of recovery for Japan as a whole.

One note about Tetsu is that I think it’s very deliberate that he served on the Aoba. As Tetsu himself points out in the film, the Aoba didn’t have a glorious victory or honorable defeat at sea, something that mulls on him as he sees the people around him die in battle. It’s not explicitly stated in the film, but at the end of the ship’s life, the Aoba was left in Kure as an anti-air battery, ending her service as a ship altogether. It’s a fair inauspicious end for the ship, and presumably for Tetsu as well, giving us yet another example of the fruitless nature of the war.

It’s also interesting how the American forces are depicted in the film. There is only one true American point of view shot that is completely removed from the context of Suzu, and that’s when reconnaissance plane flies over Kure and takes pictures of the Yamato (which is later sunk). For the most part, however, the Americans are treated like an unpredictable force of nature. There’s no human element to the flights of bombers dropping ordnance onto Kure, and they might as well be terrifying storms or mythical creatures indiscriminately raining down death and destruction. Given how apolitical the film is, treating the American threat as an abstraction allows the film to focus entirely on Suzu and how the bombs affect her. It’s a reminder that the film isn’t a war film, but a film about living through a war. In fact, the only time we see a human American presence is after Japan’s surrender, when Americans occupy Japan and begin to provide relief to the civilian population. At this point they’re not an indiscriminate force of nature anymore, they are compassionate human beings.

The countdown to August 6, 1945 is a dreadful and oppressive one, and with each passing day we know that the inevitable will happen. At the peak of the American bombing efforts, the film presents time passing through the act of someone recording the bombings into a log. On this day, there were two bombing raids, on the next day, there were four bombing raids, and so on. As the bombings get more intense, the bombing logs also begin to speed up, a staccato of violence that builds toward the inevitable crescendo of the Little Boy explosion. As members of the audience, we can only watch helplessly as Suzu tells her husband that she wants to move back to Hiroshima to be with her family, and while we breathe a sigh of relief when we see that she is unable to make it home before August 6, our relief is tempered by the fact that we know the scope and scale of the devastation. The film does a great job building tension toward a specific end date, and much like the Dunkirk (2017), you are left on the edge of your seat waiting to see how history will affect the lives of characters that we have come to care for.

While I briefly mentioned the ending above, I wanted to point out how much it worked for me despite the fact that it may seem contrived. While in Hiroshima, the film cuts away from Suzu’s perspective to show a mother and her young daughter walking away from the destruction. The mother, who has her arm amputated in the blast, dies and the little girl is left alone to fend for herself. The scene slowly dissolves around the girl so that we know some time has passed and she bumps into Suzu, and the first thing she notices is that Suzu is also missing her arm. Yes, Suzu is a convenient replacement for the girl’s mother, and the girl is a convenient replacement for Harumi, but in the context of the scene, it’s a powerful moment for the film as the characters learn to build a new family together. Suzu’s relationship with the orphaned girl is symbolic of the healing and mutual support that Japan as a nation had to go through in order to make it out of the post-war years, and the fact that we get a short montage in the credits of the happy life that Suzu has built for herself and her family after the events of the film is a testament to that idea. It’s a moment that happens very quickly, and I can see how it might lose some people, but for me it just brought everything together.

I didn’t anticipate writing as much as I did about this film, but perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s a provocative, engaging, and thoughtful look at a very problematic time in history. It’s also a great showcase for animation as a storytelling medium, unafraid of using the unique aspects of animation to its advantage.

Kono Sekai is much more of an emotional journey, and you’re not going to get the immediate catharsis that you will from seeing two lovers reunite after a decade apart from each other, but I think the story in this film will make just as big an impact on you. It’ll just take more effort to reach that point.

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