Finding Hope in Hardship: A Journey Through “In This Corner of the World”

Plot Summary:

Directed by Sunao Katabuchi, In This Corner of the World follows the life of Suzu from childhood to early adulthood within the context of WWII. The movie starts out with a young Suzu running an errand and “delivering seaweed to Futaba in Nakajima Honmachi” in place of her older brother, who usually is responsible for the delivery. A small boat owner assists her to her destination. When she reaches land, she gets lost and picked up by a hairy monster of a man who carried a bamboo basket. Accidentally, she falls into the bamboo basket, where she finds an older boy within it who reveals that they were kidnapped for dinner. In order to escape, she fashions a telescope with a seaweed cover that mimics nighttime. Suzu does not know if it actually happened or not since she often daydreams.  

The story is told through dates starting in August 1935 and ending sometime around the end of the year in 1945. She crosses the sea when it is in low tide with her siblings and celebrates her birthday with her family. She receives a new kimono, eats watermelon, and gives some of her food to a “zashiki warashi,” the spirit of a young girl. After their parents return from shopping, they return across the sea back to their home. Suzu expresses fear of her brother, who reprimanded her for leaving the new kimono to the spirit. Time skips to February 1938, where the family is seen drying out seaweed on bamboo sheets. Suzu goes to school, where she has to use a very tiny pencil since she cannot afford a new one.  

From the very beginning, Suzu has a natural talent for drawing, and she is applauded for it. On her way to collect pine needles for her family, she encounters Tetsu Mizuhara, who is avoiding his drunk parents and idling by the water. She draws a picture for him of the water and Mizuhara staring into the distance. Time skips forward again to December 1941 and then to April 1943. Suzu is now eighteen years old, and she still helps out with her family business. In preparation of a future wedding in Kure, her grandmother teaches her wedding night etiquette. She initially thinks the suitor is Mizuhara since they both held some feelings for each other, but she finally realizes it is not him.  

Shusaku Hojo is introduced and tells her family that he fell in love with her when he met her accidentally on the way to the train station. She gave him and his father directions when they were lost. The wedding is simple and short, and she is well received by his parents. Shusaku’s mother has a bad leg, so Suzu takes on the majority of the housework in her stead. Eventually, her sister-in-law, Keiko Kuromura, and her daughter, Harumi Kuromura, move back into the Hojo household. Keiko shows genuine dislike for Suzu and takes control of the household. Food rationing begins due to the war and gradually grows worse and worse. Due to the hard times, Suzu is not able to see her family for a while, but she does return to visit. April 1944 arrives, and Suzu is disillusioned with her life. Her husband, Shusaku, points out Kure’s pride and joy, the battleship, Yamato, and several other ships.  

Hard times become even harder. Food rationing becomes scarcer, and air raids plague Kure. It is so many air raids that the family builds a personal bomb shelter near the house. Over the many months, Suzu and Harumi grow close and talk often. One incident happened where Suzu was thought to be a foreign spy since she was drawing on her notepad the shoreline and the ships. No one in the family blamed or accused her. Just like in her early childhood, she is sent to buy sugar from a black-market trader in a nearby city. Somehow, she ended up getting lost in the Red-Light District. While drawing pictures of food on the road with a stick, Rin Shiraki, a courtesan shows her the way back to her home.  

In a later scene, one of the warships returned, with the naval sailors. Tetsu Mizuhara is one of the sailors who stays in the Hojo household as a childhood friend of Suzu. He seems to retain his feelings for her, but he gives up once he realizes that she was not forced in this marriage. All he wanted for her was her own happiness. He did not want her “normal” to disappear. April 6, 1945, to May 5th, 1945, major air raiding happened. During this time period, Shusaku went off to navy training for a 3-month period, and eventually they received word that Shusaku’s father survived but was injured and staying in a hospital.  

On the way back to regroup with Keiko, an unexpected air raid happened. They sheltered themselves, but during the walk back, one of the bombs had been left intact and not defused. Harumi died from the explosion, and Suzu lost part of her right arm and entire right hand. When she woke up, Shusaku’s father was lying to the left of her, and Keiko blamed her for Harumi’s death. This was a time of hardship for everyone especially Suzu who could not fully help out the household. She had lost her right arm which she used to draw with. In a sense, this signified the death of her “normal” and dreams. Shusaku returned from training to find his household in the state it was.  

At one point, her younger sister, Sumi, visited her. Sumi spoke of her time working and how a kind older military man gave her his meal tickets. At some point, Shusaku saved Suzu from being blown up by an incoming bomb, as she was distracted chasing after a heron. Near the end, Suzu returns to her hometown, Hiroshima, and finds that both of her parents died, and Sumi herself had a life-threatening disease. Eventually, peace returned to Japan. Aside from Harumi, no one else from the Hojo household died. Rationing continued with U.S. military men giving Suzu chocolates and candy, thinking that she was a child. Suzu near the end of the movie daydreamed of her childhood and the past in which the white waves were like rabbits and the warships soared in the sky.  

After the end of the war, Shusaku returned to Suzu, as the navy had been disbanded. At the very end, a lone orphan girl who had lost her mother from the atomic bomb found Suzu and Shusaku at a station. She clung to Suzu who had lost a hand just like her mother. The young orphan girl’s mother had a body which fell apart due to the direct effects of the nuclear symptoms. The young girl was accepted into the household, as she was cleaned of lice, clothed, and fed. The ending left off with the family reunited eating a meal together. Peace had returned.  

Personal Thoughts:

This movie reveals a painful truth about the past that, even though Japan has reconstructed its sense of cultural identity and seemingly moved on from the atrocities of the war, the reality for many of the older generations is that they experienced an unforgettable trauma during the war. It affected not just the natural environment but also the souls of those who lived through those wretched times. One of the most interesting aesthetic aspects of the movie is the character designs. The characters have puffy cheeks and rounder features which portrays a light and fluffy feeling and association with gentleness and youthfulness.  

The main character's personality seemed intentional, as if she was written as a hyper serious and negative character, it would have been too excruciating. Suzu is a daydreamer who often blurs the lines between dream and reality. Her early childhood and teenage years portray a sense of nostalgia which evokes feelings of contentedness, joy, and peacefulness. Even during the worst parts of the war, even when she thought she might break, she never truly did. Her persevering and almost lackadaisical character allowed for the audience to see the reality of the war but to not lose all hope for humanity.  

Another significant scene to point out is when the Imperial Family, specifically the emperor, released a statement over the radio that Japan had lost the war and fully surrendered. The reactions of Suzu and the Hojo family expressed the disillusionment that the Japanese citizens had as a whole. They could not never had guessed they would ever lose the war due to Imperial propaganda and absolute faith in the Imperial Family. She cried out internally if all of her and her family’s suffering had been for nothing. What was the purpose of enduring all the pain if it amounted to nothing? Thankfully, at the very end, she realized that enduring was part of life, and that her and the Japanese people as a whole would continue to exist into the future year-by-year, decade-by-decade. 

What is most striking about this movie is that it does not end in pure tragedy like most of its counterpart movies. Most of the war-related movies about WWII end with the death of the main characters and all of the related family members. What makes this an important movie is the theme of hope. Even though Japan lost the war, even though Sumi’s parents passed away, even though the neighbor’s child died from the atomic bomb, the Japanese people will still persist regardless. Life will continue.