Nanami Ishikawa works as an editor at a publishing company. She travels Hiroshima to go after her father Asahi who left home. During her visit to Hiroshima, she learns about the tragic story of Asahi's older sister Minami Hirano. When Minami Hirano was 13 years old, she was exposed to radiation by an atomic bomb.
히로시마 출신의 그림 그리기를 좋아하는 한 평범한 소녀 ‘스즈’는 열여덟 살이 되어 산 너머 동네의 ‘호죠 슈사쿠’와 결혼한다. 평범하고도 따뜻한 가정을 꾸리던 ‘스즈’의 삶에 태평양 전쟁이라고 불리는 전쟁이 들이닥치게 되고, ‘스즈’에게 익숙하고 소중했던 것들이 하나둘 빛을 잃어가는데…
Thirteen years afterward, I wonder if those who bombed Hiroshima are looking at me and saying: 'We did it! We were able to kill another person!' They should be," murmurs Minami (played by Kumiko Aso), one of the two leading female characters in Yunagi no Machi, Sakura no Kuni, as she lies dying in 1958, her life brought to a premature end by sickness resulting from her exposure to atomic bomb radiation. This is a story about those who at least initially survived the first U.S. atomic bombing of 1945 and their descendants in contemporary times. The film, based on a comic by Fumiyo Kono, jumps between the two time frames and quietly depicts the sorrow and mortification experienced through the everyday lives of laid-back and soft-spoken Hiroshima people. Only a few scenes of the bombing and the ensuing devastation are featured.
