Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms
| Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms | |
Cover of the first tankōbon edition of the manga, published by Futabasha | |
| 夕凪の街 桜の国 (Yūnagi no machi, Sakura no kuni) | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Historical, Drama |
| Manga | |
| Written by | Fumiyo Kōno |
| Published by | Futabasha |
| English publisher | |
| Magazine | Weekly Manga Action |
| Demographic | Seinen |
| Original run | September 2003 – July 2004 |
| Volumes | 1 |
| Audio drama | |
| Directed by | Kenji Shindo |
| Produced by | Shinya Aoki |
| Written by | Hirofumi Harada |
| Music by | Jun Nagao |
| Station | NHK |
| Released | 5 August 2006 |
| Novel | |
| Written by | Kei Kunii |
| Published by | Futabasha |
| Published | 3 July 2007 |
| Novel | |
| Written by | Yohei Makita |
| Published by | Futabasha |
| Published | 22 July 2007 |
| Live-action film | |
| Yunagi City, Sakura Country | |
| Directed by | Kiyoshi Sasabe |
| Produced by | Junichi Matsushita |
| Written by | Kiyoshi Sasabe Katsura Kunii |
| Music by | Takatsugu Muramatsu |
| Released | 28 July 2007 |
| Runtime | 118 minutes |
| Live-action television film | |
| Yunagi no Machi, Sakura no Kuni 2018 | |
| Directed by | Ritsutoki Kumano |
| Produced by | Yoshisumi Tanaka Akihisa Koike |
| Written by | Nao Morishita |
| Music by | Yohei Kobayashi |
| Studio | NHK Hiroshima Broadcasting Station |
| Original network | NHK General TV |
| Released | 6 August 2018 |
| Runtime | 73 minutes |
Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (Japanese: 夕凪の街 桜の国, Hepburn: Yūnagi no Machi, Sakura no Kuni) is a one-volume manga written and illustrated by Fumiyo Kōno. The two connected stories were first published in Japan by Futabasha in Weekly Manga Action in 2003 and 2004, then collected in a single tankōbon volume in 2004. The story is about a family of survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The author based the characters on people who were in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms was adapted as a live-action film directed by Kiyoshi Sasabe released in 2007, called Yunagi City, Sakura Country in English. It has also been adapted as a 2006 radio drama, as 2007 novels by Kei Kunii and Yohei Makita, as a 2017 stage play and as a 2018 television special.
The manga has received international praise for its simple but beautiful artwork and its quiet but "humane" anti-war message. It received the Grand Prize for manga at the 2004 Japan Media Arts Festival and the 2005 Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Creative Award. Kumiko Asō won several acting awards for her portrayal of Minami Hirano, one of the two protagonists, in the film adaptation.