Daigo Fukuryu Maru Film Storyline

On January 22^nd, 1954, a Japanese fishing boat called the ‘Daigo Fukuryu Maru’ started its sailing to go fishing for two months. With twenty three crews aboard, they started the journey happily. They sang, played guitar, and do other fun things. It was when one of the crew realized that the boat was heading east rather than south, where they usually go to, because they were not informed by the chief. The chief said that they would catch bigger fish in the east. So they headed east and started to catch big fish. One day, the fish net got broken so they decided to go south from where they were, towards Bikini Atoll, near Marshall Island, so they can catch fish using smaller nets and spears. They did catch lots of fish there, without knowing what would come out the next day. On March 1^st, in the same year, they were going to catch some more fish when they saw a huge flash light and big mushroom cloud. Some of them thought it was the sun, but Kuboyama, the boat’s chief radioman realized that it was a bomb. It was then they realized that on that day, America was testing its hydrogen bomb in Bikini Atoll. Even though the boat was 160 kilometers away from the bomb, the fallout reached to their boat and the ashes rained onto them and the fish.

When they got back to their village, they found themselves in “black and darked-skin”, so they decided to go to local hospital. The doctor in that hospital suggested them to go to Tokyo Hospital and asked them to bring some samples of the ash. Even though they’ve got dark-skin, they were still happy that they went back home safe and caught lots of fish. They gathered with their families and or met their girlfriends.

When the two representative crews, who went to Tokyo hospital, came back, they were all informed that they had got radiated by the fallouts of the bomb, especially by Strontium-90. The boat crews started to get headache, nauseas, and hair-fallen. The villagers started to get worry, but the news hadn’t been spread out of the village yet. Until one reporter named Kabe, decided to make the news telling that the American hydrogen bomb test had affected a Japanese fishing boat. So the news was spread and the government started to consider it. But since there was no way to cure these diseases caused by the radiation, they felt that there was no hope, so they were kept in the hospital so that the radiation would not spread to other people.

In September 23^rd, in the same year, Kuboyama died. In his last pray, he said, “I hope I am the last victim of hydrogen bomb.”