10 Years Later, Anime’s Forgotten WWII Epic Is Waiting to be Rediscovered on Prime Video

There are few anime studios these days with a reputation quite like MAPPA. From Attack on Titan and Jujutsu Kaisen to Chainsaw Man and Vinland Saga, the studio has become synonymous with some of the most ambitious productions in the industry. MAPPA can do spectacle, brutality, strange little character dramas, and impossibly complicated action sequences, often within the same year.

Although its name is often associated with expensive and mature anime, this reputation makes one of MAPPA’s most beautiful films all the more surprising. Released a decade ago, In This Corner of the World is a quietly devastating story about Suzu, a young woman who moves from Hiroshima to the nearby city of Kure after getting married. The story tracks her through the increasingly difficult years of World War II, capturing its real-world effects in real-time as food becomes scarce, air raids become routine and the war slowly intrudes on every ordinary part of her life.

Directed by Sunao Katabuchi and adapted from Fumiyo Kouno’s manga, the film is one of MAPPA’s most heart-wrenching projects, on par with the likes of Studio Ghibli’s Grave of the Fireflies and Madhouse’s Barefoot Gen. Calling it a “WWII anime” doesn’t really capture what makes it special, though. In This Corner of the World isn’t interested in soldiers or battles, but in the mundanity of life during such extreme conditions. The film focuses on those quieter, routine moments: cooking dinner, checking in on the neighbors, trying to make clothes last, getting married, and figuring out how to make a life work when the world becomes increasingly hostile. The film is deeply interested in the intimate details of existence, which makes everything that eventually unfolds feel all the more painful.

The animation quality amplifies those emotions. In This Corner of the World looks like someone took a box of watercolors and magically infused life itself into them. The backgrounds have a soft, hazy quality, while Suzu’s own drawings frequently bleed into the world around her. The effect takes on a life of its own. Suzu is an artist, and the film often filters history through the way she sees it. Even something as terrifying as an air raid can mutate into an abstract painting through her eyes, with explosions and aircraft rendered as strokes and splashes across the sky.

Image: Fumiyo Kouno/MAPPA

These are the kinds of contrasts the movie relies upon to show you a part of Japan’s past often relegated to text in history books. Suzu isn’t some grim war heroine; she’s a dreamy, occasionally scatterbrained young woman trying to understand the strange life she’s found herself living. The movie gives you time to actually enjoy that life. You get attached to the people around her. You become familiar with the rhythms of the household. You start to understand what a normal day looks like. There are moments of genuine warmth and even comedy, until the rug is ripped from right under you. It’s that slow, deliberate build-up that makes the story all the more brutal.

I wasn’t prepared for how hard In This Corner of the World would hit me. It’s a devastating film and not for the faint of heart. I won’t spoil the ending here, but be prepared — those who know their history may already have an inkling as to what to expect. The real-world context is also what gives the movie this unusual mixture of historical and emotional weight. The locations and everyday details were meticulously researched, with MAPPA recreating wartime Hiroshima and Kure with remarkable specificity. The result doesn’t feel like some distant history lesson, but an intimate, poignant escape into Showa-era Japan. These aren’t abstract dates in a textbook. They’re real people eating meals, walking home and trying to survive another day.

It’s also worth seeking out the film’s expanded 2019 version if it’s of interest, titled In This Corner (and Other Corners) of the World (though this version is only available in Japanese). Adding roughly 40 minutes of restored footage, the definitive cut delves much deeper into Suzu’s complex relationship with Rin, a courtesan living in Kure’s red-light district. Rather than simply extending the runtime, these extra scenes enrich Suzu’s internal life, giving her additional emotional texture and showing how women found quiet solidarity and unexpected solace amidst the encroaching shadow of war.

MAPPA has made plenty of anime — some of the most well-animated action sequences in the industry — but In This Corner of the World remains the studio’s most powerful accomplishment. In the end, the film’s strength doesn’t lie in the tragedy it depicts, but in the stubborn beauty of the everyday lives it salvages. It is a quiet triumph for MAPPA, proving that the most enduring animation isn’t about grand scale, but deep humanity.

In This Corner of the World is currently available to stream on Prime Video.