It's easy to understand why the generation who experienced WWII as children are anti-war. They suffered censorship, rationing, militarist drills, classes cancelled and replaced by factory work or farm labor, and then air raids, homelessness, and near starvation. They were taught to worship the emperor, that they lived to die for him, only to be told at war's end that that was wrong. I expected the story to end when the war ended, but I'm glad the author took us through that difficult period of adjusting to new postwar realities among the ruins of Kobe. H's struggles with his family, teachers, and neighbors are an important reminder that even a huge event like a war is ultimately no more than the background for individual lives.