Customer Reviews

Barefoot Gen, Vol. 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima

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This book tell what life was like in Hiroshima in the four months before the atomic bomb. It is actually the first of a series on the effects of war and the atomic bomb on the lives of one family as seen through the eyes of a 6 year old boy, Gen Nakaoka. Based on the real-life experiences of the author, this volume opens in April 1945 and tells of the hardships of war on the people of Japan.

Gen's father is a craftsman in Hiroshima who makes wooden sandles to try to feed his five children and his pregnant wife. He is labelled a traitor by his neighbors because he is opposed to the war. We see the cruelties and hardships of their daily lives through the eyes of young Gen who can't understand why he and his family are despised. The close family values of his home life are in sharp contrast to the rabid patriotic chauvenism of his community. This volume ends with the events of August 6, the day of the atomic bomb. The story of how Gen survives is told in the subsequent volumes.

The work has been well translated from the Japanese original: Hadashi no Gen. It was originally published in serial form in 1972 and 1973 in Shukan Shonen Jampu, the largest weekly comic magazine in Japan, with a circulation of over two million. The drawings are all in black and white. This US edition was published as part of a movement to translate the book into other languages and spread around the world its message of the threat of nuclear war. It is a wonderful testimony to the strength of the human spirit and the horrors of nuclear war. There are a few introductory essays at the front of the book and a publisher's note at the end that help to put this book into perspective. It is a powerful and tragic story that I highly recommend for anyone interested in the topic.

Nakazawa Keiji's "Hadashi no Gen", or "Barefoot Gen" as we read it, is a stark portrayal of the artist's experience before and after the bombing of Hiroshima. In Japan, in most if not all junior high schools, manga and toys are banned even today as distractions from study. Yet, Barefoot Gen won the praise of Educators in Japan immediately after it was published. This is perhaps the only manga, or graphic novel, which can be consitantly found on the shelves of school libraries in Japan.

It is not an "oh, woe is me" tale of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but rather a sharp and critical statement about both nuclear war and the Japanese expansionist empire in the first part of this century. Packed with fine details of Japanese life which are still obvious today, simple illustrations and direct text hold nothing back. What many readers may find awkward humour rattled with panic is scattered through the story, but that is a very accurate depiction of the Japanese social response mechanism to impossible situations.

The book is also a unique pop-culture portrayal of Japanese attitudes to 'gaijin', or foreigners living in Japan at the time, particularly Korean. Koreans were left without assistance by Japanese who considered them third class, and this book is unique to include that aspect in a text for youth. It is also sharply critical of an Empire's treatment of her people, while this empire still shadows Japanese life today. A truly remarkable book which should find a space on the shelves of youth and community libraries everywhere.

The simple language and graphics also make this book an excellent source for ESL readers.

Do yourself and your teenagers a favour and find copies of Barefoot Gen and the other books by Nakazawa which have been translated in this series (search Amazon.com for "The Day After", "Out of the Ashes" and others), then share them.

The author was six years old when an atomic bomb with the power of 13,500 tons of TNT exploded 1,850 feet above the center of Hiroshima, eight seconds after 8:16 on the morning of August 6, 1945. About a mile from this bomb, he survived just by luck.

About 400,000 people were in the Hiroshima area at the time. Of them, 232,000 are said to have died either directly from the bombing or, eventually, from radiation-induced illnesses.

Nakazawa eventually became a cartoonist and this book is the first in a Manga series that describes Hiroshima and his family before the bombing and afterwards. It is an extremely powerful look at a militaristic culture and the insanity of war.

I strongly recommend this amazing book. Matter of fact, I recommend the entire series.

I bought the entire set of 10 manga (Hadashi no Gen) in Nihongo while living in Japan 1987-89. I loved the VHS. Since I am still not fluent in Japanese it was a joy to see an English translation available. This and Maus are two of my favorites. Both stories come straight from the heart. I only hope my students who read manga will open this. I have the first four books. Are there more on the way?

"Hadashi no Gen" (Barefoot Gen) is a Japanese comic book series about a boy who has survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The book begins as Japan is in the midst of the war. Gen is a normal, active boy who is more preoccupied with his own friends and life than that of the larger world around him. This world, however, is turned upside-down by the horror of what happens on a clear day in August 1945. Gen is a strong boy who manages to maintain his sense of humor in the face of the most trying situations. You will cheer along with him. Whatever your take on the use of the bomb, this is a compelling read. Barefoot Gen nearly brought a tear to the eye of this often cynical reviewer.

No question. This is what War and Peace wants to be when it grows up. The idea that a man could live through a nightmare like a nuclear bomb destroying his town -- and living in those memories deeply enough to write a comic about it -- is mind-boggling. In a perfect world, the Barefoot Gen series would be required reading for every man, woman and child on the face of the planet, that we might learn from history. I defy you to read it and not be moved.

Keiji Nakazawa, Barefoot Gen (New Society Publishing, 1983)

Keiji Nakazawa's four-volume graphic epic Barefoot Gen has become legendary in the field of graphic literature, and also, in no small way, out of it. While many Japanese artists working in every medium have examined the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their aftereffects, Nakazawa, who lived in Hiroshima at the time the bombs were dropped, has an understandably closer perspective than most others who have tried it. For sheer power, Barefoot Gen's only rival in the subgenre is the similarly legendary Grave of the Fireflies.

This eponymous first volume takes us through the life of Gen, an elementary school student, and his family in the months before the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. Gen's father, while not a pacifist, is notorious in town for his speaking out against the war, which gets him and his family branded traitors. Because of this, they don't have an easy life. The family members try to find various ways to survive in the face of shunning at best, and aggression at worst, from the rest of the townspeople.

Do you need to be told that this is a book that's going to hit you in the face like a sledgehammer with its message? The artistry, or lack of same, in the delivery is the place where Grave of the Fireflies is clearly superior to Barefoot Gen, but while Nakazawa is not above letting his message get in the way of his story on occasion, it never happens for too long a period of time. Nakazawa's characters are well-drawn, and the story spends more time focused on its characters than on its message. There is a lot to be liked here, and a good deal to be mulled over, as well. Well worth your time. ****

Defying anyone who would call a graphic novel simply a comic book, the Barefoot Gen series is a great work of art at many levels. Together with "Maus," these series immortalize mistakes that can never again be allowed to be repeated.

The manga form of presentation makes reading about the prelude to this event easy and fast. The book seemed to be reasonably accurate with historical documentation and the visual format allowed the author to include detail that might otherwise have become difficult to work into the story. The clothing, clogs, air raid hoods, etc. that are be depicted add depth of information to a quick read.

Barefoot Gen - I grew up with this famous comic series by Nakazawa. It's about a boy called 'Gen' and his life in Hiroshima during the WWII and soon after the atomic bomb. Volumes 1 & 2 are probably the most important ones. After I read them in English, I just had to lend them to everyone I knew. If you read this story, you'll realise how silly to hear some popular opiniton 'Dropping two atomic bombs in Japan was necessary to end the war'. The author Nakazawa says that each and every event illustrated here is a true story. You'll see, for example, that two young brothers fight against each other for a little grain of rice. Gen trying to encourage a girl who used to be dreaming about one day becoming a professional dancer, but now her face was badly burnt by the bomb, although she still didn't know it - he refuses to let her see the mirror.

The bombs were dropped onto civilians in the two cities, and, in Hiroshima alone, 100,000 people, including children, elderly people and western prisoners of war, were killed instantly, and the pain they suffered from it was tremendous. The way some of Gen's family members, including a new born baby sister, were slowly dying is simply too sad to look at. But the reality is that it actually took place and was caused by human hands.

I sincerely hope that many people will find the opportunity to read this book at least once in their life-time, and I strongly believe that this book will enlighten the whole world with the message: 'What really happens when a nuclear bomb is dropped onto humanity', which hasn't really been talked about in history books for some reason. But I think it's time to face reality.