so today, i finally sat down and watched Kobe shimbun no nanakan. a movie/documentary that aired in 2010 in remembrance of the more than 6,400 lives lost in the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. it’s hard to explain the whole plot, but the characters are mainly people at a newspaper company. photojournalists and reporters, and how they struggle to keep the newspapers going and published through the crisis.

it shows the pains journalist and photojournalists go through. how the photographers couldn’t even bear to pick up and aim the camera. how a photojournalist thought that she’d take a picture of a heroic act of rescue, which resorted in after the photo was taken, the bodies uncovered were cold and dead.

btw, the magnitude of this earthquake was 7. my heart aches to wonder how japan is doing with a 8.9 now.

but i was totally bawling at this scene. (click for bigger version)

i don’t know how many times i’ve cried in this film.

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now i’m just waiting for newsZERO on NTV (japan) to come on. it has been nothing but news and no programs are on air. people are even finding relief when they started to air 10% of the commercials. it’s still news all the way though. but at least i’ll be able to see a familiar face. sho’s doing some live coverage on the earthquake. so i think many people will be tuning in just to see him live and safe. he’s the first johnny’s to appear on tv after the whole incident.

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btw, that enviromental piece of a japanese street i did that i posted on facebook? it’s got a pretty deep meaning to it. the hiragana/kanji at the bottom says “boku no furusato”. which means, “my hometown”. the MY isn’t mine. it’s for all the japanese that are still lost or can’t find their way.

i added arashi not because i liked them, but because they are japan’s ambassadors, and almost everyone is a fan of them in japan, because they cheer you up.

i edited the picture after i posted it on FB but was too lazy to change it.

i added a frog.

frogs in japan are good luck. they are pronounced as “kaeru” which sounds exactly like, “to return” in japanese.

i’m hoping that the people still missing would return soon.