The story arc of this essay is really unique. It starts with the devastating earthquakes and tsunamis and describes the environment and the scene at that moment. When the reader expects the story to delve deeper into disasters, it suddenly transitions into his previous story at that point. At the very first, the readers are already dropped in by this transition. Then the story barely describes some flat and basic scenes that tell of his difficulty in Hokkaido. Before that, he mentioned the transition from Tokyo to make sure the story is continuous. A slight climax was introduced when he made a mistake and apologized to the father; the father didn’t blame him but told him that it was understandable. This climax was then covered and reconnected at the end of the story when the author mentioned the disaster. His “One Thousand Cranes for Japan” plan was only mentioned in two sentences, but it has a complete and strong motivation. Overall, it is a really unique storytelling technique that expresses the emotion of kindness when he finally discovered the true spirit of Japan.
Jumping from a macro scene into a specific event can push readers into the story quickly and naturally. There’s also a huge contrast between the beautiful Hokkaido life and the earthquake.
If he directly introduces the Hokkaido story, it might be boring because there isn’t any spirituality mentioned before. The first thing plays a role in keeping the main theme of the whole story. There’s also only one quote in the text, which raised the emotion of the story overall.
Guide
Imagery
Story arc
Dropping the reader in
Claim
Evidence
Elaboration