Danica Davidson
May 4, 2022 
A short film titled “Women’s Nuclear Bomb” is playing at the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims in Nagasaki, Japan. The film follows four real women who survived the atomic bombing but were deeply hurt by it. Parts of the 22-minute movie use photos, but a lot of it is also illustrated, showing a nod toward manga.
“My youth was really monotonous,” said Reiko Fuchimoto, who was sixteen when the bomb dropped. She received a huge scar on the side of her face. A man told her this would hurt her chances of getting married, and she said then there was “sadness deeply engraved into my heart.”
She did end up getting married, and she attempted to keep her scar hidden with makeup. After her husband saw the scar, they got divorced.
Another woman featured was Semo Yamada, who was 32 when the bomb dropped. Her husband was killed, but she and her two kids made it out alive.
“I don’t want to write about it,” she said about the years after the war. “I can’t say it was a life. We were just surviving. I think we were barely surviving.”
Neither of these women are still alive to see the movie.
Yamada’s grandson, Kota Fujii, who is 48, was able to see the movie. “It was different from my impression of my grandmother, who was cheerful and full of vigor,” he remarked. She did not tell him about her experiences, but the movie did. “Footage in the film clearly shows the horror and tragedy of war,” he added.
The National World War II Museum New Orleans gave this description of the bombing:
“The bombing of the Japanese city of Nagasaki with the Fat Man plutonium bomb device on August 9, 1945, caused terrible human devastation and helped end World War II.”
Source: Kyodo News
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin. She is also the author of its upcoming sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
