Barefoot Gen

Barefoot Gen, known in Japan as Hadashi no Gen (はだしのゲン) is a manga novel written and illustrated by Keiji Nakazawa. It takes place in 1945 in and around Hiroshima, Japan, where the six-year-old boy Gen lives with his family. After Hiroshima is destroyed by atomic bombing, Gen and other survivors are left to deal with the aftermath. The story is loosely based on Nakazawa's own experience as a Hiroshima survivor.

Hadashi no Gen was originally serialized beginning in 1973 in the mass-market manga anthology Weekly Shonen Jump (Shukan Shonen Jampu), which had earlier published Nakazawa's autobiographical Hiroshima story "Ore wa Mita" ("I Saw It"). It was cancelled after a year and a half, and moved to three other less widely distributed magazines: Shimin (Citizen), Bunka Hyoron (Cultural Criticism), and Kyoiku Hyoron (Educational Criticism). It was published in book collections in Japan beginning in 1975. A volunteer organization, Project Gen, formed in 1976 to produce English translations, which were released in four volumes.

There have been several film adaptations:

• In 1976 Tengo Yamada directed a live-action version.
• Two animated films were based on the manga, Barefoot Gen (1982) and Barefoot Gen 2 (1983), both directed by Mori Masaki for a production company that Nakazawa founded.