Asahikawa is named as the hometown of Corporal Honda, a soldier remembered by Lieutenant Mamiya for his serene reserve, Buddhist reading, and particular understanding of horses. The place enters the novel not through a visit or landscape description, but through a brief biographical detail that helps define Honda’s life before the war and the qualities Mamiya associates with him.

Identity and Setting

Asahikawa is the northern Japanese city where Honda’s father ran a small print shop. Honda was the youngest of three sons and, after leaving middle school, worked alongside his brothers in the family business. Mamiya’s account locates Honda within an ordinary family and working life before his military service; it offers no further description of the city itself.

Honda’s Background and Character

Mamiya recalls Honda as a quiet man who generally listened rather than taking the lead in conversation. His silence was not, in Mamiya’s view, a sign of gloom or hostility: Honda’s calm presence softened those around him, and he maintained much the same expression whatever happened. The account connects this composure to a specific habit: during spare moments, Honda would curl up with books on Buddhist subjects.

Honda had little combat experience and only a year of training, yet Mamiya regarded him as an outstanding soldier—patient, strong, perceptive, and reliable in carrying out instructions. His cavalry training also made him the platoon’s leading authority on horses. He cared for the six horses accompanying the unit with an attentiveness that seemed to Mamiya almost like an understanding of their feelings. Sergeant Hamano recognized this ability and readily entrusted Honda with responsibilities.

Place in the Narrative

Asahikawa gives Honda’s wartime portrait a concrete point of origin: before Mamiya remembers his steadiness as a soldier and caretaker, Honda belongs to a family whose livelihood was a small print shop. That restrained detail contrasts with the demands of military service without turning the city into a described setting. Its narrative importance lies in how Mamiya’s recollection preserves the person behind the soldier through a few precise facts about home, work, reading, and character.