Barefoot Gen

For other uses, see Barefoot Gen (disambiguation).

Barefoot Gen
Original Japanese first volume
はだしのゲン (Hadashi no Gen)
Genre	Historical
Manga
Written by	Keiji Nakazawa
Published by	Shueisha Chuokoron-Shinsha
English publisher	NA: Educomics New Society Publishers Last Gasp
Magazine	Weekly Shōnen Jump Shimin Bunka Hyōron Kyōiku Hyōron
Demographic	Shōnen, seinen
Original run	May 22, 1973 – 1987
Volumes	10
Novel
Hadashi no Gen wa Pikadon wo wasurenai (Barefoot Gen Will Never Forget the Bomb)
Written by	Keiji Nakazawa
Published by	Iwanami Shoten
Published	July 1982
Novel
Hadashi no Gen he no Tegami (A Letter to Barefoot Gen)
Written by	Keiji Nakazawa
Published by	KyouikuShiryo Publishing
Published	July 1991
Novel
Jiden Hadashi no Gen (Autobiography of Barefoot Gen)
Written by	Keiji Nakazawa
Published by	KyouikuShiryo Publishing
Published	July 1994
Novel
Hadashi no Gen in Hiroshima (Barefoot Gen in Hiroshima)
Written by	Keiji Nakazawa Kyo Kijima
Published by	Kodansha
Published	July 1999
Novel
Hadashi no Gen ga ita Fukei (Where Barefoot Gen Was)
Written by	Kazuma Yoshimura Yoshiaki Fukuma
Published by	Azusa Syuppansya
Published	July 2006
Television drama
Barefoot Gen
Directed by	Nishiura Masaki Murakami Masanori
Original network	Fuji TV
Original run	August 10, 2007 – August 11, 2007
Episodes	2
Novel
Hadashi no Gen wa Hiroshima wo Wasurenai (Barefoot Gen will never forget about Hiroshima)
Written by	Keiji Nakazawa
Published by	Iwanami Shoten
Published	August 2008
Live-action films
Barefoot Gen (1976) Barefoot Gen: Explosion of Tears (1977) Barefoot Gen Part 3: Battle of Hiroshima (1980)
Anime films
Barefoot Gen (1983) Barefoot Gen 2 (1986)

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. Nakazawa began to serialize the longer, autobiographical Hadashi No Gen (Barefoot Gen) in the June 4, 1973 issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump. 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

Volume 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima

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 causes her to give birth prematurely.

Volume 2: The Day After

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

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

Following Japan's surrender, American occupation forces began to arrive in Japan to aid rebuilding efforts. After hearing rumors about the Americans, Gen and Ryuta arm themselves with a pistol they find in an abandoned weapon cache. Gen and Ryuta's fears prove unsubstantiated when the Americans give them candy. However, Gen and Ryuta witness a group of American soldiers harvesting organs from corpses for medical research, which complicates Gen and Ryuta's perspectives on Americans. Kiyo's mother-in-law evicts Gen's family again after Gen fights with her grandchildren, forcing the family to move into an abandoned bomb shelter. After Gen and Ryuta learn that they and their family are dying of malnutrition, they attempt to kill a dog for food but cannot bring themselves to kill the dog. Instead, Gen and Ryuta steal cans of American food, which contain condoms and not food. Gen and Ryuta steal from the Americans again with help from local yakuza, members of a Japanese crime syndicate. However, the yakuza betrays Gen and Ryuta, forcing Ryuta to kill two yakuza. Impressed with Ryuta, the head of a rival gang, Masa, takes Ryuta in. Before escaping with the yakuza to avoid arrest, Ryuta leaves money outside Gen's front door.

After Ryuta leaves, Gen returns to school. Bullies mock Gen and a girl named Michiko for being bald. Gen comes to Michiko's defense, and a bully challenges Gen to a duel: Gen and the bully must climb a tall tower, and 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. Later, Gen talks to Michiko and discovers that an American soldier raped her sister, and she became a prostitute to provide for Michiko. Following Michiko's revelation, Gen returns home to find Tomoko missing.

In an attempt to find Tomoko, Gen learns a Buddhist prayer, even though he thinks the prayer is nothing but superstition. Suspecting the bully knows something of Tomoko's disappearance, Gen follows the bully and uncovers the bully's scheme: The bully has been using Tomoko to trick mothers dying of acute radiation syndrome into believing that Tomoko was their missing child. The bully remains unwilling to return Tomoko until she starts vomiting blood. Tomoko's doctor says she is dying and that her only chance to survive is by taking an expensive American medicine that costs 100,000 yen (¥). Neither Gen nor the kidnappers can raise enough money. Fortunately, Mr. Pak, Gen's Korean neighbor, visits and hands Gen ¥100,000 for Tomoko's medicine. With the ¥100,000, Gen returns to his family and finds Tomoko dead. Gen refuses to believe his sister died until he realizes his hair is growing back. Upon seeing his hair, Gen is reminded of what his father taught him: he must keep growing, like wheat that grows straight and tall after being trampled.

Volume 5: The Never-Ending War

In December 1947, Ryuta visits Gen. Ryuta has become a juvenile delinquent working for the yakuza. Gen follows Ryuta and meets several orphans like Katsuko, a girl physically scarred by the atomic bomb. As an orphan and a hibakusha, Katsuko is subject to discrimination and cannot go to school. Gen lends Katsuko his books and promises to teach her. Meanwhile, Masa teaches Ryuta and other orphans to shoot a pistol because Masa wants them to kill his rival, Mitey. Donguri, one of the orphans, shoots and kills Mitey. Gen encourages the others to flee, but Masa follows them. Ryuta shoots Masa and Masa’s henchman as they escape. To evade Masa's control, the orphans build a makeshift house with Gen, who chooses to live with them to ease his mother's burden, and an old man who was cast away by his relatives for being too ill from radiation to work.

Some time passes, and New Year's Day arrives. As part of celebrations, rice cakes are distributed in exchange for cheering Emperor Hirohito, which Gen refuses to do because of his father's beliefs and Emperor Hirohito's decision to enter Japan into World War II.

Gen discovers 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 atomic bomb fell is now running for office — claiming he was always for peace. Gen enters the local official's campaign meeting, exposes the local official, and is thrown out.

Gen's mother is ill, and the doctor says the only way to help her is to take her to the American-run Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), but Gen and his mother refuse to accept American help. Gen's older brother insists that she should fight to live, so she can raise her younger children to adulthood. To help Gen's mother, the orphans shine shoes for money, and Gen sings to drum up business. Orphan catchers spot Gen and the orphans and chase them. The orphans escape and ask the old man to become their father so that they will not be orphans anymore.

Gen's mother reluctantly goes to the ABCC. However, the ABCC offers no help and treats Gen's mother like a specimen. Gen wonders why the doctor sent his mother to the ABCC. Gen ascertains the answer to his question when he rescues a girl from some bullies. Gen learns that this girl's bullying stems from her father's actions: collecting the bodies of victims of the Hiroshima to take to the ABCC for money. Additionally, the ABCC rewards corrupt doctors with medicine when doctors send people to the ABCC. The ABCC's rewards extend past doctors, as Gen sees boys fishing out skulls from the river and polishing them up to sell to the ABCC. At first, Gen finds the boys' actions disgusting but decides that the Americans deserve to be haunted by their actions and that surviving at their expense is justified. Gen tries to make amends for the skulls by chanting prayers so that they can go to heaven. Also, Gen teaches the other children how to catch shrimp instead of skulls, as Gen's mother's survival remains uncertain.

Volume 6: Writing the Truth

The Hiroshima orphans put on a show of their misery to American soldiers to sell the skulls of victims. They sell out and look forward to buying lots of food, but a pickpocket robs them on the train. To their surprise, huge bags of food are thrown off the train they disembarked from once they discover the theft. It is black market food that would not get through a checkpoint. They try to sneak some for themselves by stuffing smaller amounts to simulate a baby and pregnancy but get caught. It turns out, however, that the police eat black market rice too, since it is impossible to survive otherwise, and the orphans can escape them.

No word comes from the oldest brother Koji, who went off to work in the dangerous mines to earn money. He is drinking and gambling destructively. When Gen gets back home with rice, he finds that his mother is spitting up blood and has collapsed. They again need money they do not have for a doctor. Ryuta sticks up a casino to pay for Kimie's treatment, and the mob is after him, so he must flee Hiroshima. But every exit is staked, so he gives himself up to the police, who are the only ones who can ensure he is not killed or put in a reformatory.

In July 1948, in Hiroshima City, Gen was tearing down a wall to collect bricks, which he sold along with scrap iron to earn a living. A girl has hanged herself because of the radiation scars that made everyone treat her as a monster. Gen worries that Katsuko will try again. He writes Koji for money to help with their mother's hospital bills. He sees a girl put stones in her sleeves, preparing to throw herself into the river, and rescues her, only to discover it is Natsue. She forgets her woes when Gen hurts himself. She is angry at everyone who has treated her cruelly, and Gen decides to take her back to join the orphans, asking Katsuko to keep an eye on her. Gen is accused of being a thief when he sticks his head in a window to smell the beef he cannot afford. Natsue tries again, so he takes her and Katsuko to see someone with arms wrapped in bandages, sewing with only her feet and mouth. They decide to learn to sew, too, and open a clothing store.

Gen is not getting much for scrap and sees other orphans getting paid well for copper, so he looks for where they got it. They steal it by boat from a shipyard, but the first time Gen and an orphan, Musubi, try, the shipyard owners are already watching and catching them, intending to beat them to death. They throw stones in the river, pretending to have jumped in and drowned. Then they fill their boat with too much copper, and it sinks. They go to a shooting range and dig up spent copper bullets, but dangerous men have already claimed the place. "Papa" declares he is ready to fight to the death for the orphans, who alone have treated him like a human being after Hiroshima, and scares the men off. He reveals that he is already about to die anyway from radiation.

Gen and Musubi buy a sewing machine for Katsuko and Natsue and come home to find Papa slumped over in blood. His only regret is that he cannot see his anti-American novel, The End of Summer, published.

It is now four years since the bomb was dropped, but people keep dying from the radioactivity. Ryuta and Noro, a slowpoke, escape from the Reformatory. They trick a man and woman into leaving their clothing by the river, then steal it so they look not like two boys to those searching for them, but like a couple. Noro has sworn to kill his uncle who killed Noro's sister and sent him to the Reformatory. Ryuta is not recognized in his girlish disguise when he reaches home to discover Papa is in a coma. Gen is determined to publish the book somehow, although he is turned down by every publisher.

Volume 7: Bones into Dust

Four years after the atomic bomb was dropped, Gen is determined to get his novel The End of Summer published so "Papa" can see it before he dies. Since no Japanese publisher dares print it, Ryuta suggests they have a prison do it. However, the prison needs paper, which costs money. They rescue Noro, nearly dead from his attempt to kill his uncle and extract gold from his uncle. Gen asks for help from Mr. Pak, who is delighted to have the truth about what happened come out. Koreans suffered twice, once from being enslaved by the Japanese, and again by the bomb. He does not want money for his help. Since Ryuta cannot read, Gen reads the book to him. The graphic descriptions of the hellish effects of the bomb and the plea for everyone to make sure that nothing like this should ever happen again is too much for Ryuta, who begs him to stop. They return home to find "Papa" unresponsive, his heart stopped. Ryuta does CPR so "Papa" can see his published book. "Papa" can grasp Gen's wrist, perhaps showing that he understands, then succumbs for good. The orphans are orphaned yet again.

A few days later, after they've given away all their copies of the book, they are taken by American soldiers to a U.S. Occupation base in Kure. A Japanese-American officer, Lt. Mike Kurota, interrogates them about the book. It is illegal to write about the A-bomb in Occupied Japan. He thinks Japan deserved it after Pearl Harbor. He decides to subject them to thought modification. A fellow prisoner explains that the Cannon Agency — a special operations team that runs covert actions for American interests, named after its director, Col. Jack Cannon — will torture them to try to turn them into spies. (Later, in 1953, writer Wataru Kaji exposed torture devices and a water dungeon in the basement of the Iwasaki Mansion after he was kidnapped and detained secretly for more than a year. Many others were never seen again.)

Gen, Ryuta, and Noro cannot escape while locked in a cell, so Gen wounds himself with a loose nail smears the blood, and tells the others to act ill. A guard is about to take them to the infirmary, but Lt. Kurota has seen this old trick before. Gen then trains them to be able to take torture better, while faking greater pain. First, they're laughing about it, then quarreling angrily as they attack each other. Lt. Kurota concludes they've gone out of their minds and are useless for his purposes, so he orders them to be dumped. Gen vows revenge. The kids laugh at a taxi driver having a tantrum. He explains that someone has put sugar in his tank, ruining his means of livelihood. Gen asks Mr. Pak for sugar cubes — it is safer if he does not know why — so they can put American jeeps and trucks out of commission, creating work for Japanese mechanics. Gen puts on an impromptu comedy show to distract the Americans as the others commit sabotage.

Returning home, he finds his mother home from the hospital, seemingly cured, but Akira reveals that she has 4 months to live and does not know it. Her stomach cancer has metastasized. 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, where she had honeymooned, one last time. He finds out there is money to be made collecting poop for fertilizer.

Koji arrives, having heard the news about their mother, full of shame for having drunk up the money he should have sent home, and Gen gives him the money he has earned so he can claim to be the one taking them all to Kyoto. When they arrive, she declares that she can now die happy and rejoin their father. She knew all along that she was not cured, since her stomach pain had not gone away. When she dies, Gen refuses to have her cremated. He is determined to take her body to Tokyo so that Gen. MacArthur can see it, apologize for having used the bomb, and promise never to 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 starting the war. Koji has to knock him out to have their mother cremated, believing that one person cannot do this and that all of Japan must raise their voices together. Gen is desolate until he dreams of his parents encouraging him to be like the wheat and stand on his own feet.

Volume 8: Merchants of Death

By June 25, 1950, North and South Korea had become embroiled in war, and Japan was under threat of being dragged into the conflict. Gen and his teacher Mr. Ohta want everyone to do all they can to prevent war, but the class president, Aihara – who looks much like Gen, but with an ugly smile – believes war is inevitable, an unchangeable part of human nature, and even needed to reduce the population. He challenges Gen to a fight after school. When Gen shows up, Aihara says he does not go for playfighting, but only to the death, and tosses Gen a knife. Gen wins, and Aihara insists he should finish him off, but Gen refuses. Ryuta, selling a dress Katsuko and Natsue have made, loses ¥1000 giving it away to a Hiroshima Carp baseball fan. He is a Carp fanatic, but the team keeps losing.

The Americans make laws against antiwar protests, enforced by the right-wing hoods of the Blood-and-Thunder party, who attack Mr. Ohta. Gen pitches in, but it is Aihara, who turns out to have been orphaned by the bomb too, whose accuracy in pitching rocks wins the day. Aihara does not want to be taken to the hospital. When they take him anyway, they find he has a fractured skull and may not live the night. Looking for his home, to find someone to visit him, they discover that Aihara was adopted by a woman who had lost a son that he kept following because she looked like his dead mother. She reveals that he is already dying of incurable leukemia and keeps trying to commit suicide because he cannot face death. Ryuta and Gen get him interested in life by practicing pitching outside his home. He can do it very well — they have found him a purpose in life, to win games for the Carp.

They have just seen the Charlie Chaplin film Monsieur Verdoux when they discover Mr. Ohta drunk. He buys sake for the minors even though they cannot legally drink. He cannot stand how Gen. MacArthur set up a National Police Reserve supposedly to train police, but actually to create a military to use in Korea after Japan was supposed to be without one. Tomorrow will be Aug. 6, the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and the Hiroshima City Police have announced they will arrest anyone trying to protest against the war. Mr. Ohta tells them how Mussolini's corpse was hung upside down after the war. Gen quotes from the movie they had just seen: "One murder makes a villain — millions, a hero." Gen gets drunk, too, and comes up with a plan for tomorrow. They all ring bells and pray for peace — even Aihara. Soon afterward, the National Police Reserve was renamed the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Then Mr. Ohta resigned teaching — the only teacher who cared about his students, and did not use corporal punishment. Gen is on his way to Mr. Ohta's home to try to talk him out of it, when he sees someone shooting up. Ryuta explains that this is a speed freak.

In the war, soldiers were given Philopon — the original brand name for methamphetamine hydrochloride — to make them feel brave. It is legal in Japan, and lots of people are addicted. Gen is drinking whiskey when Natsue is overcome with pain from appendicitis. She will need to be in the hospital for two weeks. When Gen goes to see Mr. Ohta the next day, he finds him shooting up, and learns that he did not quit — he was fired by Gen. MacArthur in the Red Purge. "Incidents" keep happening, to make people think that labor union activists are committing sabotage. After being up all night in the hospital with Natsue, Gen is barely able to stay awake as he pleads with Mr. Ohta not to give up. As he conks out, Mr. Ohta breaks his hypodermic needle. The next day, the new teacher finds no students have shown up. They all chipped in to pay Mr. Ohta to teach them at his home, even though he is no longer certified to teach. Even Ryuta, who has not been in school since the bomb was dropped 5 years ago, is there. When the principal and teacher show up making all kinds of threats, that they will not be able to get jobs if they study with Mr. Ohta because they will all become evil Red Commies, Mr. Ohta takes a punch from Gen that was meant for the principal. Gen sends the principal and teacher off, and they trip and fall down the stairs in their haste. Mr. Ohta promises to start a new school and reach out to the kids who had to quit school after the bomb. Ryuta will be able to learn to read and write love letters.

The newspaper headlines read "U.N. forces launch Fierce Counterattack in Korea." Ryuta does not care about Korea's war, but Gen feels for the Koreans being attacked and realizes that American planes are launched from Japan, which might be counterattacked.

When they visit Natsue, they learn that her appendicitis scar has reopened, and she will need another operation. They worry, wondering whether the A-bomb has anything to do with it. A car splashes them with mud as the driver and the woman with him laugh at them. Ryuta treats Gen to a fancy restaurant meal to cheer him up, but the couple arrives there too. The driver boasts about how rich he is from selling scrap metal for guns and bullets. War in Korea is good for business in Japan. Ryuta is willing to accept his money to pay for laundering their clothes, much more than would be needed, but Gen is furious and starts a brawl. When the restaurant owner calls for the cops, Ryuta reminds Gen he is wanted for murder, so they have to scram. Gen laments that humans are not improving at all as they rejoice in war.

In the fall, the city is planning to tear down Gen's home for a road through the Construction Law passed by the National Parliament as part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial City. The brothers have 30 days to move. Natsue has had eight operations. After the first few, the anesthetic stopped working. The bomb's radiation destroyed her white blood cells, so the wound would not close. If pus gets into her bloodstream, she could die. She leaves the hospital and Gen must look for her. She is in Itsukaichi, determined to make a special pot.

Ryuta learns that sardines are swarming by the bucketful in Itsukaichi, so he suggests they look for her there. Gen helps a woman there who has hurt her back, and inside her home is Natsue. She reveals that the pot is for her ashes, but Gen is determined she must live. He finds Koji getting drunk trying to handle his grief at the imminent destruction and learns that there is lots of money to be made by people claiming the land of people who died from the bomb and selling it for high prices with the help of crooked politicians. Gen gets drunk too. Gen eavesdrops on Koji's conversation with his girlfriend Hiroko, who is unwilling to wait two years to get married so Gen will be old enough to be on his own, and also unwilling to have Akira and Gen live with them. Akira decides to go to Osaka to become a businessman for peace, and Gen determines not to be a burden on Koji, but to be self-reliant. He will fight to preserve their home, with the fallback position that he is welcome to come live with the orphans.

It is October 1950, and war in Korea is escalating, as is the threat of more nuclear war.

Volume 9: Breaking Down Borders

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

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

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.

Translations

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. 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." It was unpopular, and the series was canceled after two volumes.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

New English edition

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).

• 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.

Media

Films

Live-action

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.

• Barefoot Gen (1976)
• Barefoot Gen: Explosion of Tears (1977)
• Barefoot Gen: Part 3 Battle of Hiroshima (1980)

Animated films

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 (1983)
• Barefoot Gen 2 (1986)

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.

TV drama

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

• Barefoot Gen (2007)

Books

10 books have been published about Barefoot Gen.

Theatre productions

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

The manga has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.

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."

Controversy

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

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."

See also

• Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum
• White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (2007)
• Grave of the Fireflies

External links

• Full manga of Barefoot Gen at the Internet Archive
• Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen) at IMDb 
• "はだしのゲン (Hadashi no Gen)" (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. Archived from the original on 18 July 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-19.
• Group of volunteers translating and publishing a comic Barefoot Gen