著者

西村 龍一

出版者

北海道大学大学院国際広報メディア・観光学院

雑誌

国際広報メディア・観光学ジャーナル

巻号頁・発行日

vol.31, pp.93-107, 2020-12-17

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This essay analyzes In This Corner of The World (both the original manga and the anime version), focusing on the role of “memorizing now”. This work is very successful in depicting truly daily life in wartime Japan. The protagonist Suzu represents “memorizing now” through her act of drawing things and gives the meta-structure to the work. The little girl Harumi who tells Suzu names of warships in Kure Port that she could hardly know at that time mediates the continuity between innocent citizens and military. Absent and invisible brothers who taught her those names and also connect Suzu to her husband Shusaku function as the presentness itself of “memorizing now”. They are the limit of depicting=memorizing the past, bring about a tragic death to Haruim and deprive Suzu of her drawing right hand.