Chisato Shito

Chisato Shito was a young student at Okawa Primary School, child to Sayomi Shito. She passed away during the 2011 tsunami which devastated her school and is the first deceased child presented to the reader in this book. As such, she provides an initial understanding of the loss of human life during this natural disaster. Her mother's account of Chisato's last day alive is moving in that it describes her personality, the ordinariness of her final moments at home, etc. Chisato's name becomes a symbol for the loss endured by Okawa parents, and her mother's grief spurs on the creation of a group of similarly-bereaved parents who sue the city and seek to discover why so many deaths took place when emergency measures should, in theory, have protected the Okawa students.

Sayomi Shito

Sayomi Shito is an outspoken mother who lost her daughter, Chisato, to the 2011 tsunami...