Hitoshi Tamaru

During World War II, Hitoshi Tamaru serves on Peleliu as an Army Private First Class in the Second Battalion, under Second Lieutenant Shimada. Before the draft, he worked in his family's restaurant and hoped to become a manga artist. Tamaru is gentle, timid, and artistic, often drawing in spare moments while struggling with the brutality of war. Because he can invent stories, the unit appoints him “Merit Officer,” a role in which he records fallen soldiers and prepares embellished accounts of their final moments for their families.