Barefoot Gen is both a fictional and autobiographical manga about life before, during and after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Fictional in the sense that Gen and his family are made-up and autobiographical in that the author, Keiji Nakazawa, was 6 years old at the time of the bomb and actually lived in Hiroshima throughout the experience, much of which he includes in this book.
I gave this first volume a middling rating but don’t take this to mean I don’t completely respect what the book represents, its importance, or the author’s experiences. My rating purely comes down to how unrelentingly depressing the book is to read and why I simply can’t read another 9 books in this series.
Gen is famously a manga about the Hiroshima bomb and yet the actual event doesn’t happen until 34 pages before the end of this 284 page book. I’m sure the rest of the series fully explores the immediate and long-term effects of the bombing though and focusing the majority of the book on Japanese society is crucial for context.
Gen’s father is openly, and dangerously, pacifist, in a society that, by 1945, had become completely warped by the army that was now running the country. If you weren’t completely brainwashed into thinking Japan was winning and would win the war, if you didn’t send your children to die for the God Emperor, if you did anything remotely out of lockstep for what was condoned by the military, you became a social pariah, which is what happens to Gen’s family.
At a time when everyone in society was starving, the Nakaoka family endure even further hardship when stores refuse to sell them food for not being patriotic enough. The children are bullied by other kids and, more shockingly, teachers at school and their father is arrested and beaten by the police. Things get so bad that Gen’s older brother, Koji, enlists in the navy in an attempt to show the neighbours that his family aren’t traitors, even though it means almost certain death for him.
Sound grim? Nakazawa hasn’t even gotten started. In sending Koji off to basic training, he shows the horrors of life in the army leading to some nightmarish scenes (think Vincent D’Onofrio in Full Metal Jacket). Koji meets a kamikaze pilot who doesn’t want to die and is drinking himself to death to avoid having to do it. We see how wounded veterans are poorly treated when they return home.
Gen’s other brother is evacuated to the country where the kids are basically farm slaves, beaten regularly by their elders. Civilians commit mass suicide rather than surrender to the encroaching American forces with children being coaxed into strapping explosives on and crawling underneath tanks.
And we still have the bomb to go.
And yet there’s still more misery. What underlines the sadness even more is Gen’s attempts at remaining optimistic throughout all of this. There’s something so devastating about seeing a child get beaten up so constantly by everyone, go to bed hungry every night, have nothing to live for, and still try to smile and help others - and that’s exactly what Gen lives through.
But all of this is relevant information to understanding the all-or-nothing Japanese mindset of the time. The leaders of the country were so insane that they would’ve gladly sacrificed everyone before losing the war and so only an insane act - the first deployment of the atomic bomb - would be enough to make them stop.
Studio Ghibli’s masterpiece, Grave of the Fireflies, tackles much of the same issues as Barefoot Gen, minus the bomb, but does so in a much more successful way. Maybe it’s because Fireflies is more subtle, maybe it’s more focused with fewer characters, but I believe it’s because the director, Isao Takahata, is simply a better storyteller than Keiji Nakazawa. Nakazawa mixes in slapstick comedy with the darkest of tragedies while also leaning too heavily on his political stance, which makes for a somewhat clumsy narrative voice. There’s also very slow story pacing as most of the book is waiting for the real story to begin once the bomb is dropped.
Still, the book’s messages are no less powerful or worth remembering. About the dangers of groupthink and the importance of maintaining individuality in society; the dangers of blind patriotism and xenophobia (Gen’s Korean neighbour Mr Pak is one of the book’s few consistently good characters, despite the Koreans being used as slaves by the Japanese); and the horrors of what happens when the military runs a country.
It literally took me weeks to finish this one because it’s too sad to read for long. The book does become utterly engrossing though once the bomb is dropped and that entire sequence is incredible.
I don’t know who I would recommend this to but then I don’t think reviews necessarily need to guess its target audience in its summation. People read reviews and decide from the content whether they want to experience it for themselves or not. As decidedly depressing as art like Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies are (there’s no other way to depict such stories honestly), it’s up to you whether you want to learn about this aspect of World War 2. I think it’s worthwhile but I also totally understand why some people can’t do it. I’m glad I read Barefoot Gen, Volume 1 but I don’t think I’ll be able to go any further with the series - it’s too emotionally painful.
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