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إعادة إعمار هيروشيما: الأبطال الذين استطاعوا تخطي كارثة القنبلة الذرية
كثير من المدن تُدمر بسبب الحروب وأخرى بسبب الكوارث الطبيعية ولكن يتوقف حاضرها على كيفية نهوض أبنائها لإعمارها، ومن هذا المنطلق يبرز السؤال.. كيف حول أهل هيروشيما مدينتهم من مدينة مدمرة تمامًا إلى مدينة حديثة جدًا، لدرجة أن تنبهر إنبهارًا شديدًا بمدى تقدمها؟ كيف أعادوا إعمارها؟
- GenresNonfictionManga
256 pages, Paperback
Published July 1, 2025
21 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 7, 2024
This Manga tells the story of people who kept their spirit up after the atomic bomb and rebuilt Hiroshima from the ground (literally, everything within 2 kilometers of the explosion center was destroyed). Instead of lingering on hatered, regret and taking revenge, people turned Hiroshima into a city that promotes peace around the world today. The fact that a military capital turned into a city known for promoting peace is wonderful.
This Manga delivers its purpose well enough which is demonstrating Japanese culture and values, promoting peace, and the fact that with the corporation of normal citizens and the government any city can thrive.
The only thing that bothered me was the absence of women in these stories about reconstruction of Hiroshima. Probably because women weren't allowed to take such responsibilities around that time. I should do some research about this.
Also, this Manga doesn't offer much literary value. I had a hard time understanding some parts of it, either because of translation or because I didn't know much about Japanese culture.
This Manga delivers its purpose well enough which is demonstrating Japanese culture and values, promoting peace, and the fact that with the corporation of normal citizens and the government any city can thrive.
The only thing that bothered me was the absence of women in these stories about reconstruction of Hiroshima. Probably because women weren't allowed to take such responsibilities around that time. I should do some research about this.
Also, this Manga doesn't offer much literary value. I had a hard time understanding some parts of it, either because of translation or because I didn't know much about Japanese culture.
March 1, 2020
This manga begins with a little about Hiroshima's history and then the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. Each chapter covers one aspect of Hiroshima's post-bombing reconstruction and revival.
The first few chapters were dedicated to more immediate reconstruction efforts: restoring electricity, water, and gas (Chapter 1), restarting a streetcar service (Chapter 2), and reopening banks (Chapter 3). The next few chapters dealt with activities that began soon after the bombing and covered more of their history up to the present: getting legal commerce going again in the midst of a thriving black market (Chapter 4), the history of the company now known as Mazda and its three-wheeled truck (Chapter 5), reopening schools (Chapter 6), and getting the municipal government up and running again and acquiring funding for Hiroshima's reconstruction (Chapter 7). The last few chapters felt a bit more removed from the bombing than the rest, but still tied into Hiroshima's overall revival: providing cinema, music, and books to citizens again (Chapter 8), evolving a new local food culture (Chapter 9), and the history of the Hiroshima Carp baseball team (Chapter 10).
I found this volume at a used bookstore and realized, as I was googling it, that it's apparently impossible to buy online - no listings at all for it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and AbeBooks, and the book itself didn't include an ISBN or any sort of English-language publisher I recognized. Although the translation generally seemed good, the font choices and text arrangement didn't look very professional, which added to my suspicion that I'd somehow bought a bootleg book. However, I think I've solved the mystery! This review mentions that the English language edition of this work can be purchased in the Hiroshima Peace Museum's shop. Which explains how a few libraries have managed to add it to their collections and makes me feel better about donating it to my own library.
Okay, now on to the content. For the most part, I thought this was a good overview of the Hiroshima reconstruction efforts. I didn't know much about the work that went into it, and the most interesting chapters, for me, were the first three. It amazed me how much folks were able to accomplish only a couple days after the bomb dropped (and I couldn't help but worry about the effect the post-bombing radiation had on those people). I wish I could have learned more about Haruno Horimoto, the girl who volunteered to run the one functional streetcar. The streetcar chapter ended with the closing of the school that was perhaps the only home those girls still had.
The commerce chapter was the weakest and most confusing one in the volume, and seemed less focused on the people involved than the much more effective chapter on reopening the banks that came before it. The second weakest chapter was probably the baseball one, which felt out of place. More than in any other chapter, I could also feel the undercurrents of drama that the author was trying to simplify and smooth over (team management changing repeatedly, the incident with Joe Lutz and the umpire). And I don't know if the bit with the kid donating his allowance to the team actually happened, but it seemed like a particularly in-your-face bit of schmaltz in a volume that was already somewhat prone to playing up sentimental moments and details.
This isn't really something you can go into with the same expectations you'd have for fiction. The dialogue is a bit stilted, for example, and there were times I struggled to tell some of the people apart ("was that one guy with glasses the same guy who spoke up just a few pages ago? oh, yes he was!"). And I wish a bit more care had been put into its lettering - it looked like it was done by someone who hadn't had much experience with it. Dialogue was usually in a Times New Roman-like serif font, while narration was usually in an Arial-like sans-serif font, although occasionally narration used the serif font. And I came to really appreciate the tricks professional letterers use to indicate that text in one panel would be continuing in another, because they were absent in this volume, and it was occasionally jarring to discover that a sentence I had thought might be finished wasn't actually done yet.
Overall, though, I felt this was a really worthwhile and informative read, despite its issues.
Extras:
A postscript with details on some of the overseas efforts to aid Hiroshima's recovery and reconstruction. There's also what appears to be a fairly lengthy bibliography, but all the entries are in Japanese.
Rating Note:
I debated between 3.5 stars and 4. It probably wouldn't have been as much of a debate if I hadn't known, from reading Ichi-F, that this really could have been done better. However, 3.5 stars felt a bit like kicking a puppy - this is such an earnest and heartfelt volume, and I did learn quite a bit from it. And who knew that reopened banks could make me cry? So, 4 stars it is.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
The first few chapters were dedicated to more immediate reconstruction efforts: restoring electricity, water, and gas (Chapter 1), restarting a streetcar service (Chapter 2), and reopening banks (Chapter 3). The next few chapters dealt with activities that began soon after the bombing and covered more of their history up to the present: getting legal commerce going again in the midst of a thriving black market (Chapter 4), the history of the company now known as Mazda and its three-wheeled truck (Chapter 5), reopening schools (Chapter 6), and getting the municipal government up and running again and acquiring funding for Hiroshima's reconstruction (Chapter 7). The last few chapters felt a bit more removed from the bombing than the rest, but still tied into Hiroshima's overall revival: providing cinema, music, and books to citizens again (Chapter 8), evolving a new local food culture (Chapter 9), and the history of the Hiroshima Carp baseball team (Chapter 10).
I found this volume at a used bookstore and realized, as I was googling it, that it's apparently impossible to buy online - no listings at all for it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and AbeBooks, and the book itself didn't include an ISBN or any sort of English-language publisher I recognized. Although the translation generally seemed good, the font choices and text arrangement didn't look very professional, which added to my suspicion that I'd somehow bought a bootleg book. However, I think I've solved the mystery! This review mentions that the English language edition of this work can be purchased in the Hiroshima Peace Museum's shop. Which explains how a few libraries have managed to add it to their collections and makes me feel better about donating it to my own library.
Okay, now on to the content. For the most part, I thought this was a good overview of the Hiroshima reconstruction efforts. I didn't know much about the work that went into it, and the most interesting chapters, for me, were the first three. It amazed me how much folks were able to accomplish only a couple days after the bomb dropped (and I couldn't help but worry about the effect the post-bombing radiation had on those people). I wish I could have learned more about Haruno Horimoto, the girl who volunteered to run the one functional streetcar. The streetcar chapter ended with the closing of the school that was perhaps the only home those girls still had.
The commerce chapter was the weakest and most confusing one in the volume, and seemed less focused on the people involved than the much more effective chapter on reopening the banks that came before it. The second weakest chapter was probably the baseball one, which felt out of place. More than in any other chapter, I could also feel the undercurrents of drama that the author was trying to simplify and smooth over (team management changing repeatedly, the incident with Joe Lutz and the umpire). And I don't know if the bit with the kid donating his allowance to the team actually happened, but it seemed like a particularly in-your-face bit of schmaltz in a volume that was already somewhat prone to playing up sentimental moments and details.
This isn't really something you can go into with the same expectations you'd have for fiction. The dialogue is a bit stilted, for example, and there were times I struggled to tell some of the people apart ("was that one guy with glasses the same guy who spoke up just a few pages ago? oh, yes he was!"). And I wish a bit more care had been put into its lettering - it looked like it was done by someone who hadn't had much experience with it. Dialogue was usually in a Times New Roman-like serif font, while narration was usually in an Arial-like sans-serif font, although occasionally narration used the serif font. And I came to really appreciate the tricks professional letterers use to indicate that text in one panel would be continuing in another, because they were absent in this volume, and it was occasionally jarring to discover that a sentence I had thought might be finished wasn't actually done yet.
Overall, though, I felt this was a really worthwhile and informative read, despite its issues.
Extras:
A postscript with details on some of the overseas efforts to aid Hiroshima's recovery and reconstruction. There's also what appears to be a fairly lengthy bibliography, but all the entries are in Japanese.
Rating Note:
I debated between 3.5 stars and 4. It probably wouldn't have been as much of a debate if I hadn't known, from reading Ichi-F, that this really could have been done better. However, 3.5 stars felt a bit like kicking a puppy - this is such an earnest and heartfelt volume, and I did learn quite a bit from it. And who knew that reopened banks could make me cry? So, 4 stars it is.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
April 10, 2017
This was a well told story of Hiroshima's...well...revival. It was illuminating to see what happened after the bombs fell - the spirit of the people coming together and the speed with which things came together. The best feedback I can give is that it made me want to learn even more about this part of Hiroshima's story.
October 25, 2020
"Getting depressed about it isn't going to bring back the death" (pg. 130)
I got this book years ago from my father's Japanese colleague who is from Hiroshima. I also have visited Hiroshima 3 years ago as well. I think I went to the Hiroshima museum but I could not remember anything about it, unfortunately. I did not really know much about the atomic bomb and Hiroshima, so this book really did surprised me. This book is about how people of different professions in Hiroshima recover and rebuilt the city after the atomic bomb was dropped (true story illustrated as a graphic novel). I really have so much respect for the people. One event that really impressed me was when the bomb was dropped and all the bankbooks and documents were gone, the banks in Hiroshima allowed people to withdraw the money without requiring any evidence or documents. This means people could have lied and get the money out more than what they actually have in their account, but most of the people didn't do so. I really respect the honesty of Japanese people, even in a very hard time like that, they were still being honest. This book also shows that it doesn't only have to be the teachers or doctors to help the city, people in different professions all contributed and tried their best to revive Hiroshima. Some people played the music, gave out desserts, and did small things to help other people in the town to feel better which really touched me. People in every profession were trying their best to do their duty to make Hiroshima a beautiful and peaceful place again. I also didn't know that Mazda, Okonomiyaki, and a few other things are from Hiroshima and these things were made after the atomic bomb to help people in some way (which is very cool!) This book made me wanting to visit Hiroshima again and also made me realize that I should pay more attention to the place's history and culture when I travel ;)
.
I got this book years ago from my father's Japanese colleague who is from Hiroshima. I also have visited Hiroshima 3 years ago as well. I think I went to the Hiroshima museum but I could not remember anything about it, unfortunately. I did not really know much about the atomic bomb and Hiroshima, so this book really did surprised me. This book is about how people of different professions in Hiroshima recover and rebuilt the city after the atomic bomb was dropped (true story illustrated as a graphic novel). I really have so much respect for the people. One event that really impressed me was when the bomb was dropped and all the bankbooks and documents were gone, the banks in Hiroshima allowed people to withdraw the money without requiring any evidence or documents. This means people could have lied and get the money out more than what they actually have in their account, but most of the people didn't do so. I really respect the honesty of Japanese people, even in a very hard time like that, they were still being honest. This book also shows that it doesn't only have to be the teachers or doctors to help the city, people in different professions all contributed and tried their best to revive Hiroshima. Some people played the music, gave out desserts, and did small things to help other people in the town to feel better which really touched me. People in every profession were trying their best to do their duty to make Hiroshima a beautiful and peaceful place again. I also didn't know that Mazda, Okonomiyaki, and a few other things are from Hiroshima and these things were made after the atomic bomb to help people in some way (which is very cool!) This book made me wanting to visit Hiroshima again and also made me realize that I should pay more attention to the place's history and culture when I travel ;)
.
March 28, 2018
This is an impressive manga I picked up in Hiroshima looking at the city’s recovery from the A-Bomb in August 1945. It manages, in keeping with the style, to weave together individual cases with bigger stories of institutional and infrastructural reconstruction, alongside an image of a collective urge to ‘get back to normal’, or at least something resembling everyday life. There is a welcome reluctance to play into the ‘great man, heroic leader’ image on the whole, while also celebrating those who took the lead – but not entirely: there is in some of the stories a sense of the power of the will. It is engaging, well written and accessible, but as with so much else we see about the era from official sources in Japan, no mention of the war itself other than a comment on p108 about ‘when the Sino-Japanese War broke out’ (as in when Japan invaded Manchuria – China). That said, it is a tale of people’s power – when the state ceased to exist there was self-organisation in the face of overwhelming destruction. It is a good insight to a story we seldom here: the bomb exploded at 08:15 on 6 August – but what happened next?
June 18, 2021
This is both a documentary and a Hiroshima promotion book. It relates a lot of heroïc stories and honour the courage, strengh and hardwork of Hiroshima and japanese citizens just after the bombing in WW II. It was instructive and quite moving, and so full of motivation. A worth read.
April 30, 2022
Loved it!! Really summarized all the interconnected events well. The art style was very clear and it suited the story. The translations were also done very well. This would be a great tool to teach children about the Hiroshima bombing. Highly recommend!
May 15, 2025
(4.5)
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews