Barefoot Gen

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Barefoot Gen
Original Japanese first volume
はだしのゲン
(Hadashi no Gen)
GenreHistorical[1]
Manga
Written byKeiji Nakazawa
Published by
English publisher
Magazine
DemographicShōnen, seinen
Original runMay 22, 19731987
Volumes10
Novel
Hadashi no Gen wa Pikadon wo wasurenai
(Barefoot Gen Will Never Forget the Bomb)
Written byKeiji Nakazawa
Published byIwanami Shoten
PublishedJuly 1982
Novel
Hadashi no Gen he no Tegami
(A Letter to Barefoot Gen)
Written byKeiji Nakazawa
Published byKyouikuShiryo Publishing
PublishedJuly 1991
Novel
Jiden Hadashi no Gen
(Autobiography of Barefoot Gen)
Written byKeiji Nakazawa
Published byKyouikuShiryo Publishing
PublishedJuly 1994
Novel
Hadashi no Gen in Hiroshima
(Barefoot Gen in Hiroshima)
Written by
  • Keiji Nakazawa
  • Kyo Kijima
Published byKodansha
PublishedJuly 1999
Novel
Hadashi no Gen ga ita Fukei
(Where Barefoot Gen Was)
Written by
  • Kazuma Yoshimura
  • Yoshiaki Fukuma
Published byAzusa Syuppansya
PublishedJuly 2006
Television drama
Barefoot Gen
Directed by
  • Nishiura Masaki
  • Murakami Masanori
Original networkFuji TV
Original run August 10, 2007 August 11, 2007
Episodes2
Novel
Hadashi no Gen wa Hiroshima wo Wasurenai
(Barefoot Gen will never forget about Hiroshima)
Written byKeiji Nakazawa
Published byIwanami Shoten
PublishedAugust 2008
Live-action films
Anime films

Barefoot Gen (はだしのゲン, Hadashi no Gen) is a Japanese historical manga series by Keiji Nakazawa, loosely based on Nakazawa's experiences as a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing. The series begins in 1945 in and around Hiroshima, Japan, where six-year-old Gen Nakaoka lives with his family. After Hiroshima is destroyed by the bombing, Gen and other survivors deal with the aftermath. The series was published in several magazines, including Weekly Shōnen Jump, from 1973 to 1987. It was adapted into three live-action film versions directed by Tengo Yamada, which were released between 1976 and 1980. Madhouse released two anime films, one in 1983 and the other in 1986. In August 2007, a two-night live-action television drama series aired in Japan on Fuji TV.

Cartoonist Keiji Nakazawa created Ore wa Mita (translated into English as I Saw It), an eyewitness account of the atomic-bomb devastation in Japan, for Monthly Shōnen Jump in 1972. It was published in the United States by Educomics in 1982.[2] Nakazawa began to serialize the longer, autobiographical Hadashi No Gen (Barefoot Gen)[2] in the June 4, 1973 issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump.[3] It was canceled after a year and a half and moved to three other, less-widely-distributed magazines: Shimin (Citizen), Bunka Hyōron (Cultural Criticism), and Kyōiku Hyōron (Educational Criticism). The series began to appear in Japanese book collections in 1975.

Plot[edit]

Volume 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima[edit]

The story begins in Hiroshima in April 1945. Six-year-old Gen Nakaoka and his family live in poverty, struggling to make ends meet. His father, Daikichi, urges them to "live like wheat" (which grows strong, despite being trodden on) and is critical of the war. When he is drunk at a mandatory combat drill and talks back to his instructor, the Nakaokas are branded as traitors and become subject to harassment and discrimination by their neighbors. To restore his family's honor, Gen's older brother Koji joins the Imperial Navy against Daikichi's wishes. He is subjected to a brutal training regimen by his commanding officer, which drives one of his friends to suicide. On August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. Daikichi and Gen's siblings are killed in the fires, but he and his mother escape. The shock makes her give birth prematurely to Tomoko, his sister.

Volume 2: The Day After[edit]

In the days after the attack, Gen and his mother see the horrors wrought by the bomb. Hiroshima is in ruins, full of people dead and dying from burns and radiation sickness. Gen meets Natsue, a girl who strongly resembles his dead sister. Her face is severely burned; she tries to commit suicide when she realizes it, but Gen convinces her to continue living. Gen leaves her to find rice, and his mother adopts Ryuta, an orphan who looks just like his younger brother Shinji. After Gen returns to their burnt-out home and retrieves the remains of his father and siblings, he and his family move in with Kimie's friend Kiyo. Kiyo's stingy mother-in-law conspires with her spoiled grandchildren to drive the Nakaokas out, falsely accusing the children and Kimie of stealing rice the grandchildren had stolen.

Volume 3: Life After the Bomb[edit]

The family looks for housing in vain, since they cannot afford a place to stay. The remorseful Kiyo invites them back, but her mother-in-law demands rent. Gen looks for work to earn money. A man hires him to look after his brother Seiji, who has been burnt severely from head to toe and lives in squalor. Although Seiji is initially reluctant, he warms up to Gen over time. Gen learns that Seiji is an artist who has lost the will to live because his burns have left him unable to hold a brush. Gen helps Seiji learn to paint with his teeth, but the artist eventually dies of his injuries. On August 14, Emperor Hirohito announces Japan's surrender over the radio. When Kimie needs a doctor, Gen cannot find anyone who will help without payment in money or food.

Volume 4: Out of the Ashes[edit]

After Japan's surrender, American occupation forces began to arrive to aid rebuilding efforts. After hearing rumors about the Americans, Gen and Ryuta arm themselves with a pistol they find in an abandoned weapons cache. Their fears ease when the Americans give them candy, but they see a group of American soldiers harvesting organs from corpses for medical research. Kiyo's mother-in-law again evicts Gen's family after Gen fights with her grandchildren, forcing the family to move into an abandoned bomb shelter. Gen, Ryuta and their family are dying of malnutrition, and they try to kill a dog for food but cannot do it. Gen and Ryuta steal cans of what they think is American food, but are condoms. They steal from the Americans again, with help from local yakuza. The yakuza betray Gen and Ryuta, forcing Ryuta to kill two gang members. Impressed with Ryuta, Masa (leader of a rival gang) takes him in. Before escaping with the yakuza, Ryuta leaves money outside Gen's door.

Gen returns to school, and he and a girl named Michiko are ridiculed for being bald. He defends Michiko, and is challenged to climb a tall tower; the first to return with a pigeon's egg wins. As Gen and the bully climb, the tower starts to crumble beneath them and Gen saves the bully from falling. Michiko tells Gen that an American soldier raped her sister, and she became a prostitute to provide for Michiko. Gen returns home to find Tomoko missing.

Suspecting that the bully knows about Tomoko's disappearance, Gen follows him and learns that he is using Tomoko to trick mothers dying of acute radiation syndrome into thinking that she is their missing child. Tomoko develops radiation sickness, and her doctor says she will die without an expensive American medicine. Gen and the kidnappers cannot raise the money, but Gen's Korean neighbor Mr. Pak does. Gen returns to his family and finds Tomoko dead, but his hair is growing back.

Volume 5: The Never-Ending War[edit]

In December 1947, Ryuta (now a juvenile delinquent working for the yakuza) visits Gen. Gen follows Ryuta and meets several orphans including Katsuko, a girl physically scarred by the bomb. As an orphaned hibakusha, she cannot attend school. Gen lends Katsuko his books, promising to teach her. Masa teaches Ryuta and the other orphans to shoot because he wants them to kill Mitey, his rival. Donguri (one of the orphans) kills Mitey; Gen encourages the others to flee, but Masa follows them. Ryuta shoots Masa and his henchman. The orphans build a makeshift house with Gen, who lives with them with an old man cast away by his relatives for being too ill from radiation to work. Rice cakes are distributed on New Year's Day to encourage cheers for Emperor Hirohito. Gen refuses to cheer because of his father's beliefs and Hirohito's decision to fight the war.

He learns that the local official who called Gen's father a traitor for supporting peace and refused to help free Gen's father, brother, and sister from their house when the bomb fell is running for office, claiming that he was always for peace. Gen enters a campaign meeting, exposes the official, and is thrown out.

Gen's mother is ill and her doctor says her only hope is the American-run Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), but Gen and his mother refuse to accept American help at first. His mother then reluctantly goes to the ABCC, which offers no help apart from research. When Gen rescues a girl from bullies, he learns that her father collects victim bodies to sell to the ABCC. The commission rewards corrupt doctors with medicine in exchange for referrals, and Gen sees boys fishing skulls from the river to sell to the ABCC. He decides that surviving at American expense is justified, but teaches the other children to catch shrimp instead of skulls.

Volume 6: Writing the Truth[edit]

The Hiroshima orphans demonstrate their misery to American soldiers to sell the skulls of victims. They hope to buy lots of food, but a pickpocket robs them on the train. Huge bags of food are thrown off the train they got off: black-market food. They try to hide it, are caught, and escape the police.

Koji, working in the mines, is drinking and gambling. Gen returns home with the rice to find his mother very ill, but they cannot afford a doctor. Ryuta robs a casino to pay for Kimie's treatment; the mob is after him, and he unsuccessfully tries to flee Hiroshima. He surrenders to the police.

In July 1948, Gen is tearing down a wall to collect bricks to sell. A girl has hanged herself because of radiation scars that made everyone treat her like a monster. Gen writes to Koji, asking for money for their mother's hospital bills. He saves Natsue from suicide and brings her back to the orphans, asking Katsuko to watch her. Gen is falsely accused of theft. Natsue attempts suicide again, and Gen brings her and Katsuko to see someone sewing with her feet and mouth. They decide to learn to sew and open a clothing store.

Gen sees other orphans paid well for copper stolen from a shipyard. Gen and Musubi (another orphan) are caught by the shipyard owners, who want to kill them. They escape, fill their boat with too much copper, and it sinks. Gen and Musubi buy a sewing machine for Katsuko and Natsue. Four years after the bombing, people are still dying from radiation sickness.

Volume 7: Bones into Dust[edit]

Four years after the bombing, Gen is determined to get his novel published. No Japanese publisher will print it, and Ryuta suggests a prison. Gen asks from Mr. Pak for help, who is delighted to reveal the truth about what happened. Koreans suffered twice: from Japanese enslavement, and the bomb. He does not want money for his help. Since Ryuta cannot read, Gen reads the book to him. The descriptions of the effects of the bomb and the plea to ensure that nothing like it could happen again is too much for Ryuta, who begs him to stop.

A few days later, they are brought by American soldiers to an occupation base in Kure. A Japanese-American officer interrogates them about the book, since writing about the bomb in occupied Japan is illegal. A fellow prisoner explains that a special operations team will try to turn them into spies.

Gen, Ryuta, and Noro cannot escape. Gen wounds himself with a loose nail, smears the blood, and tells the others to act ill; they are released. A taxi driver is angry because someone has put sugar in his tank, ruining his livelihood. Gen asks Mr. Pak for sugar cubes to put American jeeps and trucks out of commission, creating work for Japanese mechanics.

He finds his mother home from the hospital, seemingly cured; however, Akira says that she has four months to live and does not know it. It is hard for Gen and Akira to pretend all is well. As she talks about her arranged marriage to their father, whom she grew to love, and how people who were against the war were tortured and killed even before it had started, Gen determines to earn money to send his mother to visit Kyoto one last time. He learns that collecting excrement for fertilizer is lucrative.

Koji arrives after hearing about their mother, ashamed of wasting the money he should have sent home, and Gen gives him the money he has earned so he can say he is taking them all to Kyoto. When they arrive, she says that she can now die happy and rejoin their father; she knew that she was not cured, since her stomach pain continued. When she dies, Gen refuses to have her cremated. He is determined to bring her body to Tokyo so that General MacArthur can see it, apologize for using the bomb, and promise to never do so again. He wants the Emperor – who declared war as a god, then admitted he was mortal when he lost – to apologize to her and take responsibility for the war. Koji has to knock him out to have their mother cremated, believing that one person cannot do this and all Japan must raise their voices together. Gen is desolate until he dreams of his parents, encouraging him to be like the wheat.

Volume 8: Merchants of Death[edit]

By June 25, 1950, Japan was threatened with involvement in the Korean War. Gen and his teacher, Mr. Ohta, want everyone to do all they can to prevent war; class president Aihara believes war is inevitable and necessary, and challenges Gen to a fight after school. He gives Gen a knife before Gen wins.

The Americans outlaw antiwar protests, but Aihara's skull is fractured. They learn that Aihara was also orphaned and was adopted by a woman he followed around because she resembled his mother. Dying of leukemia, he keeps trying to commit suicide because he cannot face death. Ryuta and Gen reinterest him in life by pitching a baseball outside his home, and Aihara pitches well.

They find Mr. Ohta drunk, and he buys them sake. He hates General MacArthur's National Police Reserve, ostensibly to train police but actually to create an army to use in Korea. The Hiroshima police have announced that they will arrest anyone protesting the war. Gen gets drunk and plans for the anniversary of the bombing the following day; they all ring bells and pray for peace. Mr. Ohta supposedly resigns, and Gen sees someone injecting methamphetamine. During the war, soldiers received Philopon (the original brand name for methamphetamine). It is legal in Japan, and many people are addicted. Gen is drinking whiskey when Natsue develops appendicitis and needs to be hospitalized for two weeks. He finds Mr. Ohta shooting up, and learns that he did not resign — he was fired by MacArthur in the Red Purge. People are told that union activists are committing sabotage. Gen pleads with Mr. Ohta not to give up. The orphans chip in to pay Mr. Ohta to teach them at his home – even Ryuta, who has not been in school since the bombing. He promises to start a new school. Gen, sympathetic to the Koreans, fears that Japan will be attacked for housing American planes.

Natsue's scar has reopened, and she needs more surgery. She does not heal because of the radiation, and goes to Itsukaichi to make a pot; Ryuta suggests that they look for her. The city plans to tear down Gen's home to build a road, and the brothers have 30 days to move. Gen helps a woman in Itsukaichi, and finds Natsue in her home. Natsue says that the pot is for her ashes, but Gen wants her to live. He and Koji get drunk. Gen overhears Koji's conversation with his girlfriend Hiroko, who is unwilling to wait two years to get married and have Akira and Gen live with them. Akira decides to go to Osaka and become a businessman for peace, and Gen is determined to be self-reliant and fight to preserve their home. In October 1950, the threat of war is increasing.

Volume 9: Breaking Down Borders[edit]

Gen and Ryuta resist the demolishment of Gen's home, throwing rocks from the roof, but in vain. Gen wounds himself in his hand to always remember the pain. Natsue finishes her pot and returns home to the orphans, who are celebrating Gen's joining them. He sees a crack in the pot, and the jar slips and breaks. Natsue is too weak and ill to make another after she had put all her heart and soul into this one. Gen runs off. He had broken it on purpose to give her a reason to keep living, to make another, but it did not work. Gen and Ryuta get into a fight, scaring off a fortuneteller's customers. He bashes them in the head with a plank. Ryuta summons the orphans to help get Gen to the hospital, but when they get there, Gen is not to be found. A fortuneteller says he went to the hospital and tells Natsue she will be well in a month, with an auspicious future, complete with husband and four children. She is persuaded to go back to the hospital.

Then Gen takes off his fortuneteller disguise. Natsue soon dies of colorectal cancer. Someone from the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) shows up offering to pay ¥30,000 and arrange for her cremation so they can study how to cure radiation sickness, but Gen sends them off angrily, accusing them of wanting this knowledge to treat Americans, not Japanese, in the next atomic war.

Natsue died six months into the Korean War, on Dec. 30, 1950, the day that Gen. MacArthur convinced President Truman to plan to use nuclear weapons in Korea. Only world outrage against their first use stopped it, although the USA threatened again in May 1953 and in April 1969 after Koreans shot down a U.S. reconnaissance plane. In January 1951 they buried Natsue's ashes in an urn Gen made. They are about to bury her on Mt. Hiji but discover that the ABCC has erected buildings there to collect corpses from Hiroshima. Gen decides to bury Natsue with his own family, but a boy snatches the box the urn is in and runs away. He thought something valuable must be inside. His grandfather is ashamed that his grandson has become a thief, but the boy is not. He is desperate to get his grandfather's oil paints to finish his painting.

Gen was given Seiji's painting tools on his death, to finish his painting – which Gen never did – and he is willing to give it to the grandfather, but he destroys all his paintings, realizing it was arrogant to think of himself as a great painter when he could not even support his family by painting, and had even driven his grandson to theft. Gen brings the paints to him anyhow, convincing him to keep painting whether or not his work is popular, and when the old man tells him about his youthful dreams, "Art has no borders," about using art to break down borders, that is what Gen decides to do with his life. Ryuta questions whether ideals will give you enough money to eat. Gen decides to combine art with earning a living by looking for training as a sign painter. However, he gets into a brawl with a sign painter and accidentally ruins the sign advertising a Kurosawa double feature of Rashomon and Stray Dogs that needs to be done that day. He promises to work for free until he has repaid the damage, but the people at the shop are still mad, and the fighting results in Gen breaking the sign painter's arm. The grandfather, Seiga Amano, who is a better painter, offers to take over. The highly militaristic president of the company who commissioned the sign is pleased with being able to exploit both of them, although he blows a tire on his motor scooter and sprains his ankle. An underling, Kurosaki, is still jealous and has it in for them. The grandfather starts teaching Gen about perspective.

On April 15, 1951, the headlines read that Gen. MacArthur would leave Japan on April 10 [sic]. President Truman replaced him because he wanted to extend the Korean War into China and destroy communist China, but instead, the president relieved him of his post as Supreme Commander in the Far East. Gen practices perspective night and day, improving, which makes Kurosaki furious, so he hires gangsters to cut Gen's arm off. He escapes with his arm, but his clothing is in shreds. Gen cannot understand why he did not simply ask Amano for lessons too, to improve.

Kurosaki was a victim of the bomb as well. Having lost all his family, he was "adopted" by a Buddhist priest who took him to an island and exploited and tortured him and 15 other orphans as slave labor. When a girl fell sick, the priest was unwilling to bother with taking her to the hospital, and she died. Kurosaki barely managed to escape the island alive, clinging to a tire on a supply boat. He and Gen agree that there is no Buddha or God; it is all lies and trickery for someone's convenience. American soldiers were given blessings to do justice dropping the bomb on Nagasaki right onto a Christian church filled with fellow worshippers. If there were a God or Buddha, why would he not get rid of wars and bombs? Then, as Kurosaki was wandering miserably, trying to survive, he saw a beautiful rainbow that cheered him. Remembering his mother's stories of a treasure at the end, he found it was a painted sign, with the words "Peace in the Hearts of Hiroshima Citizens" written below. He decided to become a sign painter, and even though the head of the company was a tyrant, all was going well until Gen and Amano spoiled everything. Gen refuses to be blamed or to leave, having given his word to make up for the damage he had caused. He says they should compete to get better. Gen and the orphans see a sign saying "Lecture on Japan's Defense by Prefectural Assemblyman Denjiro Samejima, a Fighter for Love and Peace" — the same man who as their neighborhood chairman had called Gen's father a traitor. Gen cannot stand it, but a rainbow soothes them. Gen wanted to build rainbow bridges from country to country in a world without borders, free of war.

Volume 10: Never Give Up[edit]

It is March 1953, and Gen is graduating from middle school, although he does not go to school much now, learning to paint and working at the sign shop. Mr. Ohta has just started his private academy with 10 students. Ryuta summarizes news from 1952: on Apr. 28, a treaty with America launched Japanese independence. On Bloody May Day, unpermitted demonstrators clashed with police outside the Imperial Palace, and on Aug. 6, freed from American bans during the occupation, a special issue of a magazine shocked Japan with photos of the devastation from the bomb that had never been seen before. The Prime Minister dissolves the Lower House after calling a questioner by a derogatory name. Then he tells everyone to cheer up by buying the dresses Katsuko and Natsue have been making. This displeases the owner of the dress shop he is outside of, but they agree that the store will buy the dresses from now on. One of the orphans, Musubi, has been keeping their savings in a passbook so they can set up their dress shop when they have enough.

There is a ceremony for the graduating class of the middle school Gen goes to, but rather than graduating peaceably — he will not be going on to high school — he protests the singing of the national anthem praising the Emperor who started the war and details his war crimes. Some of the kids invite the principal and some of the teachers to a private thank-you ceremony, saying they want to present them with a gift, but actually, they beat up the teachers in revenge for all the beatings they were given. Gen puts a stop to it. A beautiful girl accidentally runs into Gen while trying to catch a street car, and he falls head over heels in love without knowing who she might be. Mr. Amano and Gen get themselves "fired" from the sign painting shop, where they were not being paid in the first place, for objecting to the militaristic talk of Mr. Nakao, the owner. Gen catches sight of the girl again and follows her home. It turns out that her father is Mr. Nakao, who forbids her from having anything to do with him. Musubi stays out late, being pepped up by a bar owner with an energy shot. Ryuta asks Mitsuko, the girl Gen loves, to go out with him on a date, and shows her Gen's sketchbook filled with pictures of her and declarations of love. She explains that her father has forbidden it, and Ryuta goes off angry, spitting insults. This leads to Ryuta and Gen quarreling, and when Musubi arrives and fails to explain his absences, more fighting, which Katsuko cannot stand. Musubi storms away to calm down. Mitsuko is impressed by Gen's sketchbook. Her father tells her she is the one important thing in his life, his dream being to see her married to the perfect husband and provide grandchildren. She hates having his dreams forced down her throat. Musubi goes back to the bar for an energy shot, which he is told is full of vitamins. Mitsuko gets Gen's address from the store to come to thank him for the sketchbook, and she agrees to model for more sketches.

On July 27, 1953, an armistice was signed for peace in Korea. The dresses are selling well, but Ryuta and Katsuko wonder why Musubi is the only one not working, and where he is. Gen and Mitsuko go to the Itsukushima Shrine of Miyajima and lament that the deer there were nearly all killed off for food at the end of the war. Mitsuko confesses that she thinks she is a murderer because when the bomb was dropped, she, a small child, was unable to carry her injured mother and ran for her own life. Gen also left his father, sister, and brother. On his way home, Gen runs into Musubi on a street car, looking unwell. He shoves Gen and runs off to the bar for another shot, but cannot pay. They tell him he will be in agony for days since he is addicted. Only now does he learn that the "vitamins" were illegal drugs. He steals money from the postal savings passbook of the orphans' savings toward a dress shop to pay for more shots. He returns home, claiming to be well, and sorry for his absence, but Gen catches him preparing to shoot up and smashes the hypodermic. Musubi runs off, rather than face withdrawal.

The Hiroshima ABCC announces a sharp rise in leukemia in atomic bomb survivors. Mitsuko decides to become a doctor to fight back against the people who destroy lives through bombs and war. She tells how the yakuza used Hiroshima orphans to kill other gangsters. A yakuza takes offense and picks a fight with her, but she wins. However, she is unwell, and unwilling to go to a doctor, because it might turn out to be an A-bomb illness. She dies of leukemia. Her father blames Gen, who blames her father's militarism. Her final letter to her father backs him up. Musubi has run through the passbook money and tries to break into the bar to get drugs, but gets beaten up and dumped for dead. He makes it back to the orphans first. Gen vows to seek revenge, so Ryuta knocks him out so Ryuta, who has already killed two gangsters, can take care of it, leaving Gen free of murder. Ryuta is about to turn himself in, but he is talked into escaping to Tokyo with Katsuko. As Gen goes to put Musubi's ashes with Gen's family, Mr. Amano encourages Gen to go to Tokyo as well, to become an artist and test himself.

Themes[edit]

Major themes throughout the work are power, hegemony, resistance, and loyalty.

Gen's family suffers as all families do in war. They must conduct themselves as proper members of society, as all Japanese are instructed in paying tribute to the Emperor. But because of a belief that their involvement in the war is due to the greed of the rich ruling class, Gen's father rejects the military propaganda and the family comes to be treated as traitors. Gen's family struggles with their bond of loyalty to each other and to a government that is willing to send teenagers on suicide missions in battle. This push-and-pull relationship is seen many times as Gen is ridiculed in school, mimicking his father's views on Japan's role in the war, and then is subsequently punished by his father for spouting things he learned through rote brainwashing in school.

Many of these themes are put into a much harsher perspective when portrayed alongside themes of the struggle between war and peace.

Takayuki Kawaguchi (川口 隆行, Kawaguchi Takayuki), author of "Barefoot Gen and 'A bomb literature' re-recollecting the nuclear experience" (「はだしのゲン」と「原爆文学」 ――原爆体験の再記憶化をめぐって, "Hadashi no Gen" to "Genbaku Bungaku"—Genbaku Taiken no Saikiokuka o Megutte) believes that the characters Katsuko and Natsue coopt but change the stereotypical "Hiroshima Maiden" story, as typified in Black Rain, as although courageous, Katsuko and Natsue is severely scarred both physically and mentally.[4]

Translations[edit]

A volunteer pacifist organization, Project Gen, was formed in Tokyo in 1976 to produce English translations. Translations of the volumes began being printed in 1978, with copies made available in the US through James Peck of the War Resisters League in New York City, concluding with the fourth volume.[5] Leonard Rifas' EduComics published it, beginning in 1980, as Gen of Hiroshima, making it the "first full-length translation of a manga from Japanese into English to be published in the West."[5][6] It was unpopular, and the series was canceled after two volumes.[7]

The group Rondo Gen published an Esperanto translation as Nudpieda Gen (Barefoot Gen) in 1982. The chief translator was Izumi Yukio.

The German Rowohlt Verlag published only the first volume in 1982 under their mass-market label "error". Carlsen Comics tried it again in 2004 but canceled the publication after four volumes. Both publishers took the name Barfuß durch Hiroshima (Barefoot through Hiroshima).

The first volume was published in Norwegian in 1986 by GEVION norsk forlag A/S.[8] The Norwegian title is Gen, Gutten fra Hiroshima (Gen, the Boy from Hiroshima). A similar edition in Swedish (Gen – Pojken från Hiroshima) was published in 1985 by Alvglans förlag, which may have been the earliest published manga in Swedish.[9]

The first volume was published in Finnish in 1985 by Jalava. It became the first Japanese comic to be published in Finland. However, publishing was later abandoned. The Finnish title is Hiroshiman poika ("The Son of Hiroshima"), and the Finnish translation was done by Kaija-Leena Ogihara. In 2006 Jalava republished the first volume (with its original translation) and continued with the publication of the second volume.

All 10 volumes were published in Poland by Waneko in 2004–2011 under the title Hiroszima 1945: Bosonogi Gen.[10]

An Arabic translation was published in Egypt by Maher El-Sherbini, a professor in the Department of Japanese Language and Japanese Literature at Cairo University. He began the project in 1992 when he was an exchange student at the Hiroshima University Graduate School of Letters, where he had completed his master's and doctorate degrees. The first volume was released in January 2015, and since then all 10 volumes have been translated.[11]

New Society Publishers produced a second English-language run of the series in graphic novel format (as Barefoot Gen: The Cartoon Story of Hiroshima) starting in 1988.[5]

New English edition[edit]

A new English translation has been released by Last Gasp (starting in 2004) with an introduction by Art Spiegelman, who has compared the work to his work, Maus (which is about the experiences of Spiegelman's father during the Holocaust in Europe).[12]

  • Barefoot Gen Vol. 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima (paperback ed.). Last Gasp. 2004 [1972–1973]. ISBN 0-86719-602-5.
  • Barefoot Gen Vol. 2: The Day After (paperback ed.). Last Gasp. 2004 [1972–1973]. ISBN 0-86719-619-X.
  • Barefoot Gen Vol. 3: Life After The Bomb (paperback ed.). Last Gasp. 2005 [1972–1973]. ISBN 978-0-86719-594-1. OL 8330688M.
  • Barefoot Gen Vol. 4: Out Of The Ashes (paperback ed.). Last Gasp. 2005 [1972–1973]. ISBN 0-86719-595-9. OL 20389870M.
  • Barefoot Gen Vol. 5: The Never-Ending War (paperback ed.). Last Gasp. 2007 [1972–1973]. ISBN 978-0-86719-596-5. OL 23085379M.
  • Barefoot Gen Vol. 6: Writing the Truth (paperback ed.). Last Gasp. 2008 [1972–1973]. ISBN 978-0-86719-597-2.
  • Barefoot Gen Vol. 7: Bones Into Dust (paperback ed.). Last Gasp. 2008 [1972–1973]. ISBN 978-0-86719-598-9.
  • Barefoot Gen Vol. 8: Merchants of Death (paperback ed.). Last Gasp. 2009 [1972–1973]. ISBN 978-0-86719-599-6.
  • Barefoot Gen Vol. 9: Breaking Down Borders (paperback ed.). Last Gasp. 2010 [1972–1973]. ISBN 978-0-86719-600-9.
  • Barefoot Gen Vol. 10: Never Give Up (paperback ed.). Last Gasp. 2010 [1972–1973]. ISBN 978-0-86719-601-6.

Nakazawa planned to present a set of the series to U.S. President Barack Obama to caution against nuclear proliferation.[13]

Media[edit]

Films[edit]

Live-action[edit]

In 1976, 1977, and 1980, Tengo Yamada directed three live-action film adaptations. In 2009, a Hollywood producer expressed interest in a studio version of the manga.[14]

Animated films[edit]

Two animated films were based on the manga, in 1983 and 1986, both directed by Mori Masaki for a production company that Nakazawa founded.

Barefoot Gen 2 is set three years after the bomb fell. It focuses on the continuing survival of Gen and orphans in Hiroshima.

Initially released individually on dub-only VHS tape by Streamline Pictures, and then dub-only DVD by Image Entertainment, Geneon eventually sold bilingual versions of the film on DVD as a set. In 2017, Discotek Media published both films on Blu-ray with both the Japanese and English languages available in it, on December 26.[15]

TV drama[edit]

A two-episode TV drama was produced by Fuji Television in 2007 and was aired over two days:

Books[edit]

10 books have been published about Barefoot Gen.

Theatre productions[edit]

There have been several stage play adaptations of Barefoot Gen produced in Japan.

In July 1996, the first stage adaptation in English was premiered at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, UK. The production was a collaboration between the Crucible Theatre and Theatre Zenshinza, Tokyo, Japan. In 1994 British theatre director Bryn Jones traveled to Japan to request Mr. Nakazawa's permission to adapt the first volume as a play. Permission was granted, and Jones returned to Sheffield to prepare the production's research, design, and dramatization with the Crucible company, Tatsuo Suzuki, and Fusako Kurahara. Mr. Nakazawa subsequently traveled to the UK to attend final rehearsals and gave post-show talks after the opening performances. The final manuscript was adapted and dramatized by Tatsuo Suzuki and Bryn Jones and translated by Fusako Kurahara. The production received a Japan Festival Award in 1997 for outstanding achievements in furthering the understanding of Japanese culture in the United Kingdom.

Reception[edit]

The manga has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.[16]

There has been some renewed interest in Barefoot Gen in 2023 after the release of Oppenheimer, a film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist widely known as the "father of the atomic bomb."[17]

Controversy[edit]

In December 2012, access to Barefoot Gen became restricted in elementary schools and junior high schools[18] of Matsue city in Japan,[19] after a claim was made that Barefoot Gen "describes atrocities by Japanese troops that did not take place".[20] This was reviewed after 44 of 49 school principals polled in the city wanted the restriction removed[21] – the curb was later lifted in August 2013.[22]

Nakazawa's widow, Misayo, had expressed shock that children's access to the work was being curbed, explaining that "war is brutal. It expresses that in pictures, and I want people to keep reading it."[23]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Barefoot Gen Manga to Be Used as School Material". Anime News Network. Retrieved May 31, 2018.
  2. ^ a b "Barefoot Gen a.k.a. Gen of Hiroshima". Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on 2016-08-03. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
  3. ^ "はだしのゲン". Media Arts Database (in Japanese). Agency for Cultural Affairs. Archived from the original on August 16, 2016. Retrieved November 24, 2020.
  4. ^ Kawaguchi, Takayuki (September 2010). "Barefoot Gen and 'A-bomb literature' re-recollecting the nuclear experience (「はだしのゲン」と「原爆文学」――原爆体験の再記憶化をめぐって Hadashi no Gen" to "Genbaku Bungaku"-Genbaku Taiken no Sai Kioku ka Omegudde)". In Berndt, Jaqueline (ed.). Comics Worlds and the World of Comics: Towards Scholarship on a Global Scale (PDF). Kyoto, Japan: International Manga Research Center, Kyoto Seika University. pp. 233–243. ISBN 978-4-905187-01-1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 29 October 2010. - Article translated by Nele Noppe. - Original Japanese article.
  5. ^ a b c Adams, Jeff (2008). Documentary graphic novels and social realism. Oxford: Peter Lang. pp. 92–93. ISBN 9783039113620.
  6. ^ Rifas, Leonard (2004). "Globalizing Comic Books from Below: How Manga Came to America". International Journal of Comics Art. 6 (2).
  7. ^ Booker, M. Keith (28 October 2014). Comics through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas. Abc-Clio. p. 470. ISBN 9780313397516.
  8. ^ "GEVION Norsk Forlag a/s". Archived from the original on 2008-12-11. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  9. ^ "Manga och Anime i Sverige: Del 4 | Daisuki". Archived from the original on 2010-08-13. Retrieved 2010-08-31.
  10. ^ Hiroszima 1945: Bosonogi Gen (in German). Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  11. ^ Niiyama, Kyoko (2020-07-14). "Cairo University professor translates Barefoot Gen into Arabic in hopes of conveying A-bombing catastrophe to Egypt". Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  12. ^ "Barefoot Gen". Last Gasp. Archived from the original on 2022-04-09. Retrieved 2022-04-12.
  13. ^ Yomiuri Shimbun on 26 July 2009 Ver.13S p.38 and Close-up Gendai on 6 Aug. 2009
  14. ^ Loo, Egan (2009-08-18). "Berserk, Baki, Barefoot Gen Pitched to Hollywood". Anime News Network. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  15. ^ "Discotek Media". www.facebook.com. Archived from the original on 2022-02-26. Retrieved 2020-03-25.
  16. ^ Lighter, Kim Sumiko (2013). "はだしのゲン / Barefoot Gen". Kotobank.jp (Asahi Shimbun). 発行部数は、国内外で 1000 万部以上に上り.... / Hakkō busū wa, kokunaigai de 1000 man-bu ijō ni nobori.... / More than 10 million copies are issued at home and abroad...
  17. ^ Levitt, Barry (21 July 2023). "After 'Oppenheimer,' Watch This Unforgettable, Horrifying Atomic Bomb Anime". The Daily Beast.
  18. ^ Matsue-shi homepage: Elementary school, junior high school homepage Retrieved Aug 24, 2013.
  19. ^ Williams, Maren (Aug 20, 2013). "Barefoot Gen Pulled from Matsue School Libraries". Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Retrieved 2013-08-24.
  20. ^ Faith Aquino (Aug 19, 2013). "Anti-war manga 'Barefoot Gen' removed from school libraries". The Japan Daily News. Ewdison Then. Archived from the original on Aug 25, 2013. Retrieved 2013-08-24.
  21. ^ "Don't curb 'Barefoot Gen': Matsue principals". The Japan Times Online. 2013-08-22. ISSN 0447-5763. Retrieved 2020-02-15.
  22. ^ "Barefoot Gen Ban Lifted | Comic Book Legal Defense Fund". 28 August 2013. Retrieved 2020-02-15.
  23. ^ "Japan school board bows to outcry, drops curbs on anti-war comic". Reuters. 2013-08-26. Retrieved 2020-02-15.

External links[edit]