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A-bomb program "Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms" to be shown at planetarium in downtown Hiroshima

by Michiko Tanaka, Staff Writer

On April 24, the Hiroshima Children's Museum in downtown Hiroshima will begin showing "Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms," a special program on the theme of the atomic bombing, at the planetarium located within the museum building. The program is based on a comic book with the same title, which was written by manga artist Fumiyo Kono, a resident of Tokyo and native of Nishi Ward, Hiroshima. The museum has initiated the program with the wish that "We would like to appeal for peace from our science museum in the A-bombed city of Hiroshima." The program will be presented through September 5.

The main characters of the program are a woman exposed to the atomic bombing in Hiroshima and her niece, a second-generation A-bomb survivor. Linking the past with the present, the film shows the trauma suffered by A-bomb survivors (hibakusha), among other things, through a depiction of the pair's daily lives. The museum has reconstructed about 150 original pictures from the comic book and will project the program onto the hemispheric ceiling of the planetarium. The planetarium will display a starry sky for scenes which take place at night, staging the program in a way unique to the properties of a planetarium. The program runs about 50 minutes.

Kazutaka Kato, 60, former director of the Hiroshima Children's Museum, who retired in March, had proposed the idea and the museum has worked on the project as an event to commemorate the 30th anniversary of its opening. The program was created under the supervision of Ms. Kono. Mr. Kato commented, "I hope that the program will motivate people, especially young people, to think about peace. I'll be pleased if the program can also be projected extensively by other museums."

The admission fee for the planetarium is 250 yen for students in elementary school, junior high school, and high school, and 500 yen for adults. The museum is closed every Monday and the day after national holidays.

(Originally published on April 24, 2010)

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