YMMV / In This Corner of the World

• Better on DVD: The theatrical release of the anime film greatly reduced Rin's screentime and cut out various chapters and storylines from the manga. The extended version of the film, In This Corner (and Other Corners) of the World restores all of it and expands Rin's presence, adding a whopping 42 minutes of running time to an already 120-minute long film. Despite its increased length, it is still well worth it and doesn't even feel any longer, not to mention dragged out.
• Broken Base: Non's performance as Suzu in the 2016 movie. Some think her voice acting is too wooden, especially since she doesn't usually voice act (she's mainly an actress and fashion model) and thus she sounds out of place in a cast that includes experienced voice actors like Yoshimasa Hosoya and Daisuke Ono. Others like Suzu's voice just fine and think she sounds more natural than most female anime characters do.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The scene involving two overzealous Kempeitai officers who took Suzu for a spy. They spend half a day yelling at the Houjou family, who all look tense and terrified... only to reveal everyone was barely Holding in Laughter at the sheer ridiculousness of anyone thinking Suzu is even remotely capable of spying or mistaking her clueless, perplexed expression for that of a poker face of a hardened infiltrator.
• Fan Nickname: Suzu is almost always referred to as "Suzu-san" by Japanese fans, which is less of a nickname and more of a sign of respect.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Keiko apologizes to Suzu for blaming her for Harumi's death, expresses respect for her coming so far to marry a man she barely knows, and says that the Hojo household will be home to Suzu for as long as Suzu wants it to be.
  • Towards the end of the story, Suzu and Shusaku note that nearly everyone in Hiroshima is looking for someone they've lost after the nuclear bombing. Shusaku, however, says he'll always recognize Suzu no matter what, thanks to her distinctive mole. Suzu is clearly touched, which leads to the series' Title Drop:
    Suzu: Shusaku-san...Thank you for finding me in this corner of the world. Please stay by my side, and never leave.
• Jerkass Woobie: Keiko starts out acting needlessly harsh towards her sister-in-law Suzu and often criticizes and belittles her, and she apparently didn't get along well with her husband's family because of her abrasive personality. However, it's revealed that she's had her own hardships to deal with; her Delicate and Sickly husband died, she lost custody of her son Hisao to the boy's paternal grandparents and was essentially cast out of the Kuromura family along with her young daughter Harumi, and her house is later torn down as part of the government's efforts to prevent damage from fire bombing. When Harumi is killed by a time-delayed bomb, Keiko is so devastated that she blames her death on Suzu and tells her she should have died in Harumi's place, something she later comes to regret saying. She does gradually mellow out, especially towards Suzu.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Subverted with Harumi, who actually is Killed Off for Real, and the ripples from that haunt the rest of the characters for the remainder of the story.
• Nightmare Fuel: The backstory of the orphan girl: sitting with her deceased mother for days, long enough that her dead body not only attracts flies, but maggots started to feast on it. And yet the girl was still waiting for her mom to wake up, desperately clinging to her dead body and trying to keep the flies away from it.
• Squick: Towards the end of the story, there's a scene where a girl who will later be adopted by Suzu and Shusaku is sitting next to the corpse of her dead mother while trying to keep flies away from it. We then see maggots pouring out of the corpse's ears as it slumps forward.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Both the manga and the anime adaptation share the same issue: they present Japan as a victim of the war (being an atomic survivor included) and completely gloss over why the war is even happening or why all those nice and friendly characters are being put through so many hardships, not to mention who started the unprovoked aggression. Then it concludes with the main character being furious over her country's efforts being All for Nothing, despite all the preparation for the "final battle for the Home Islands" (though in the manga it's briefly acknowledged how Imperial Japan exploited its colonies, when Suzu sees a Korean flag waving and she realizes that the violence Japan used to make them obey had befallen on Japan itself this time). While it's undeniable that Japan's civilian population suffered as a result of the bombardments and war-time shortages, and the story does include some Dramatic Irony of the nation's hubris in thinking they'll win the war only to show the inevitable aftermath, it's still a pretty tough sell internationally for In This Corner of the World to ultimately be a story about Japanese people as innocent victims of WW2. Compare this with Barefoot Gen, which while also told from the perspective of Japanese civilians, still acknowledged Japan's own misdeeds like the enslavement of Korean citizens or rampant militarism, especially since the main characters are ostracized in their community due to their father being an outspoken pacifist.
  • The Kuromura family taking Keiko's son Hisao away from her once she's widowed since they need a heir to their family; for a long time in Japan, when a couple split up or the husband died, custody of the oldest child would always go to the husband's family no matter how much the wife would try to negotiate. Keiko's in-laws treat her and her daughter Harumi as strangers simply because her husband is now dead, though this isn't helped by Keiko's combative nature. While the characters do find it tough to deal with in-universe, they still roll with it as the sort of thing that people do, given the boy is the only heir to the Kuromura name. The film adaptation notably portrays it as old-timey and dated (which it was, even by 1940s standards), along with being simply unfair toward Keiko. To add further dissonance, while already being a widow for quite a while, Keiko eventually divorces the Kuromura family, rather than being cast out by them or drifting apart. So legally, she shares nothing with those people anymore.

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