Referring to his work in the Japanese subtitle as a "record of labor", Tatsuta describes the daily lives of workers at the site down to small details, such as how itchy their noses would become after hours under protective masks. (That chapter, titled "Itchy Nose", was republished in the March 2017 issue of ''
Harper's Magazine''.) Other notable details include a description of the multi-layered subcontracting system employed by TEPCO to hire cleanup workers. The unnamed company that Tatsuta worked for is a sixth subcontractor of TEPCO, and after all the intermediaries took their cuts, his salary was only 8,000 yen per day, rising to 20,000 yen on days when he was called upon to enter the reactor buildings. Neither the manga nor Tatsuta have posed an answer to whether Japanese nuclear power plants should be closed. When
Kyodo News asked why Tatsuta wrote the series, he said, "I wanted to describe the gap between what the public thought and what I saw inside.
Ichiefu is...like my diary, but I am pleased if it has resulted in showing the workers' real lives." == Release ==