Negotiating Hiroshima’s Cultural Memory Across Media: Comparative Analysis of Japanese Animation and French Cinema

Pai, Wan-Li

Negotiating Hiroshima’s Cultural Memory Across Media: Comparative Analysis of Japanese Animation and French Cinema

James Alexander Gordon on 11th February 2026

Author Information

Wan-Li Pai, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan

Abstract

Hiroshima has been remembered through documentary testimony, animation, and cinema. As a site of cultural memory, its meanings continue to be negotiated across different national, historical, and representational contexts. This paper investigates how Hiroshima as a site of cultural memory is linguistically constructed across Japanese animation and French cinema. Moving beyond visual-centric approaches in film and memory studies, it foregrounds language as a constitutive site of memory production, examining how dialogue, narrative voice, and discourse structure shape the representation of historical trauma. The study conducts a comparative analysis of Grave of the Fireflies (1988), In This Corner of the World (2016), and Hiroshima mon amour (1959). Drawing on frameworks from cultural memory studies, sociolinguistics, and discourse analysis, it examines language at micro (lexical choice, repetition, silence), meso (register, politeness, interactional dynamics), and macro (narrative voice, fragmentation, temporal structure) levels. Findings show that Japanese animation constructs war memory through embodied everyday speech, where repetition, politeness, and silence embed trauma within ordinary interaction. In contrast, French cinema articulates memory through fragmented and reflexive discourse, where repetition and narrative disruption highlight the instability of testimony and remembrance. Despite these differences, both traditions demonstrate that memory is actively produced through language. The paper argues that language is not a transparent medium of memory but a site where cultural memory is negotiated, reconstructed, and transmitted across cultures. This interdisciplinary approach contributes to film and linguistic studies by demonstrating how linguistic practices shape transnational representations of historical trauma and highlighting the importance of discourse analysis in visual media.