Manga Tour Day 8, Pt. 1: Hiroshima Peace Museum

Day 8 of the Pop Japan Travel / Mind Over Manga tour experience took us to yet another city, Hiroshima, and the nearby island of Miyajima, then back to Hiroshima for some okonomiyaki at a Gundam-themed restaurant then back again to Osaka. Lots crammed into this day too, so I'll cover this in a few posts.

Only seven of the remaining 11 members in our tour group opted to take the optional Hiroshima leg of the tour. The rest of the group opted to either stay in Osaka or go to nearby Nara instead. I had been to Hiroshima and Miyajima before, but this was kind of special for me, since I have family in Miyajima and lots of fond memories of my first trip to here when I was a kid.

After arriving at Hiroshima Station, we got on a streetcar for a quick ride to the A-Bomb Dome Memorial and the Hiroshima Peace Museum. Once again, the skies were grey, and rain fell for much of the day, but in this case, it seemed to fit the somber mood of the place.

The A-Bomb Dome Memorial (a.k.a. the Gembaku Dome) was the former home of the Hiroshima Prefectural Products Exhibition Hall. It was very close to the epicenter of the blast, but managed to be one of the few structures left standing after the blast and subsequent firestorms. Today, it is fenced in and painstakingly preserved as an UNESCO World Heritage site as a stark reminder of the horrors of war.

Our next stop was to the Hiroshima Peace Museum. With photos, videos, artifacts and personal accounts from survivors, the Peace Museum provides a powerful testament to the events and aftermath of that fateful day in early August 5, 1945 when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb "Little Boy" on the seaside city of Hiroshima.

Artist Takeshi Murakami edited a book and curated an exhibit titled Little Boy, which examines the psychological, cultural and artistic legacy of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the WWII firebombing of Tokyo upon contemporary Japanese pop culture. It's no accident that Japanese artists, animators and authors have explored post-apocalyptic-themes in manga and anime. Akira, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Basara and even Godzilla are the products of this post-war legacy. It's one thing to watch Neo-Tokyo explode in an anime -- it's quite another to see how such devastation would really affect innocent people, in graphic detail.

Of course, there are numerous manga and anime accounts depicting this period, including Barefoot Gen, Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms and the heart-wrenching Grave of the Fireflies. All are worth checking out, as is the museum.

There was a lot of heavy stuff to take in that morning, but there was much more light-hearted fun ahead as we next took a high-speed ferry to the nearby island of Miyajima.

Image credit: © Deb Aoki