URAYASU, Chiba Prefecture--Artist and writer Asuka Setori was working on a one-shot girls' manga in her apartment at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, when the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake struck.
URAYASU, Chiba Prefecture--Artist and writer Asuka Setori was working on a one-shot girls' manga in her apartment at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, when the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake struck.
Alarmed by the violent shaking, Setori ran outside and saw black liquid mud oozing up from beneath the ground across the city. Then came a strong aftershock, and the asphalt covering the streets cracked and rippled.
Now, the 28-year-old Setori has captured that experience and the huge damage caused in her city by the quake-spawned soil liquefaction in her latest manga, "Ashita, Jishin ga Yattekuru!" (An earthquake comes tomorrow!), published in March by Kadokawa Corp.'s Enterbrain imprint.
She hopes the essay manga will serve as a reminder for readers to think about the disaster, the damage caused by liquefaction and possible earthquakes in the future.
"There are many places across the country that can be damaged by liquefaction," Setori says. "I hope I can raise awareness by sharing my experience, sprinkled with information on disaster prevention."
The manga focuses on what she witnessed in the city and the plight of its residents that lasted for more than two weeks after the disaster. With water and sewer lines cut off, residents had to use temporary toilets, and their inconveniences were aggravated by rolling power blackouts.
Much of the liquefaction took place at the sites of massive landfill projects that arose when Urayasu started to grow in the 1960s.
After the earthquake, residents, volunteer workers, Self-Defense Forces members and others offered to help, but there were also rubbernecking onlookers who said insensitive things.
Setori didn't leave out those details.
There are also illustrated features in the manga that show how to make a portable toilet from newspapers and toilet pads for pets and others that offer tips on emergency supplies, such as a small flashlight and a whistle that Setori carries around all the time.
Setori published the essay manga one page each day on her blog from 2012 to the spring of 2013.
An editor who read the work approached Setori about compiling the series into a book. Setori visited the Tokyo Fire Department's Life Safety Learning Center in Tokyo's Ikebukuro district and joined a training session for stranded commuters to add a new chapter to provide practical information on how to prepare for another disaster.
"I still feel the weight in my heart after I was affected by the disaster, but I thought I had to think about it again," Setori says.
The essay manga sells for 1,000 yen ($10).