page_title: Keiko Sonoi
section_title: Hiroshima A-bomb
hierarchical_section_title: Keiko Sonoi / Biography / Hiroshima A-bomb
caption_attribution_description: 日本語: 園井恵子と後援者の中井家の人々
context_page_description: Keiko Sonoi was a Japanese actress, who was a member of the all-female musical-performing Takarazuka Revue during the 1930s and the 1940s, best known for her role as an officer's widow in the wartime film Muhōmatsu no isshō, and for being part of the Sakura-tai or Cherry Blossom Unit of traveling shingeki play actors who died as a result of the 1945 Hiroshima bombing.
  The fate of the Cherry Blossom Unit was later dramatized by playwright Hisashi Inoue, and also made into a feature film by director Kaneto Shindo.
  The actress appears to have had a long-held desire to perform shingeki plays, but that was not economically viable due to the need to her support her parents and siblings. As a Takarazienne, she had the manga comic artist Osamu Tezuka as a childhood fan who lived on her block, and Astro Boy may have been influenced by Sonoi's performance of Pinochio from April to May, 1942.
context_section_description: When the Atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Sonoi was thrown from the hallway to the yard by the blast, and momentarily lost consciousness, but otherwise had no visible wounds. She found actor Shōzō Takayama (son of Kuraku-za co-founder Tokuemon Takayama aka Kenji Susukida) lightly injured, and the two of them fled to Mount Hiji approximately 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) away. Sadao Maruyama and Midori Naka also left the scene, each separately, but were in poor condition were taken into custody at different locations. The remains of the five others members were found skeletonized at the burning wreck of the office.
  Sonoi and Takayama subsequently took the train and reached the Nakai residence in Kobe. Sonoi's face and clothing were soiled, and she wore a jika-tabi on one foot and a man's shoe on the other, so that she looked "like a beggar" and was nearly beyond recognition.
  On August 15, when informed the war had ended, Sonoi expressed her gladness at being able to act to her hearts content to Akiko Utsumi who was visiting, and also wrote a letter dated August 17 to her mother Kame in Morioka expressing this sentiment.
  However, Sonoi's condition deteriorated. Her hair started to fall off at night, before suffering high fever around August 19, according to Mrs. Nakai; Other symptoms such as hematochezia, internal bleeding and delusions also presented.
  By August 19, Motoo Hatta who was a stage director for Sakura-tai tracked Sonoi down, and came to see her at the Nakai residence. Sonoi asked of news about Maruyama, and sensed he must have passed away. On August 21, Sonoi's fever reached 40 degrees C, and Mrs. Utsumi rushed out to procure ice. Sonoi felt the coolness of the chilled gauze, and said "Oh, how good it feels". Those were the last words before she died.
  Sonoi's remains were cremated the following day, and her bones and ashes buried in Onryū-ji in Morioka.
  The story of the Sakura-tai's demise was written up in a book by author Hagie Ezu in 1980, which was adapted into the film Sakura-tai chiru (1988) directed by Kaneto Shindō.
caption: 1943, with the Nakai family. From right, Sonoi, Michiko Nakai, Shizu, and Yoshio
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