Barefoot Gen Volume 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima

by Keiji Nakazawa

Book Overview

The reissue of this classic manga's first volume has impeccable timing. It recounts the bombing of Hiroshima from the perspective of a young boy, Gen, and his family. But the book's themes (the physical and psychological damage ordinary people suffer from war's realities) ring chillingly true today. Despite its harrowing nature, this work is invaluable for the lessons it offers in history, humanity and compassion. Published to coincide with the 60th...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0867196025
• ISBN13: 9780867196023
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Last Gasp
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

You may have to be brave enough to buy and own this book...

...which recalls all the gruesome and harrowing events that led up to the great, tragic bombing incident on Japan that FINALLY ended World War II for once and for all.Nothing is held back. There is farting, bloody bowel movements, the baring of nipple to suckle an infant, maggots crawling through ravaged flesh, and burning corpses popping out of coffins to curl back like twigs. It's all raw and wide-open here. But like all the greatest manga stories ever drawn and written, you will be hopelessly riveted all the way to the end as well as wanting to read it again and again to relive even the ugliest scenes ever to unfold on paper. For one of the most infamous pieces of Japanese history has been burned forever on the pages to be told and retold to the future generations yet to come. If they have strong hearts and stomaches for such a moving drama that the artist himself had unfortunately witnessed with his own young eyes.But the grim story isn't without humor or some warmth that the heroic family shares and what's more, the characters are also well-drawn in the classic 1970s style with those bright, shining eyes, expressive mouths, and cute, chiseled noses.In spite of all those masterful elements, the saddest of all true-to-life manga tales got to me so much that I don't know if I will ever own the series, let alone watch the anime, which I actually refused to see in the first place!

A literary atomic bomb in its impact

This book tell what life was like in Hiroshima in the four months before the atomic bomb. It is actually the first of a series on the effects of war and the atomic bomb on the lives of one family as seen through the eyes of a 6 year old boy, Gen Nakaoka. Based on the real-life experiences of the author, this volume opens in April 1945 and tells of the hardships of war on the people of Japan. Gen's father is a craftsman in Hiroshima who makes wooden sandles to try to feed his five children and his pregnant wife. He is labelled a traitor by his neighbors because he is opposed to the war. We see the cruelties and hardships of their daily lives through the eyes of young Gen who can't understand why he and his family are despised. The close family values of his home life are in sharp contrast to the rabid patriotic chauvenism of his community. This volume ends with the events of August 6, the day of the atomic bomb. The story of how Gen survives is told in the subsequent volumes. The work has been well translated from the Japanese original: Hadashi no Gen. It was originally published in serial form in 1972 and 1973 in Shukan Shonen Jampu, the largest weekly comic magazine in Japan, with a circulation of over two million. The drawings are all in black and white. This US edition was published as part of a movement to translate the book into other languages and spread around the world its message of the threat of nuclear war. It is a wonderful testimony to the strength of the human spirit and the horrors of nuclear war. There are a few introductory essays at the front of the book and a publisher's note at the end that help to put this book into perspective. It is a powerful and tragic story that I highly recommend for anyone interested in the topic.

Quite a moving tale of survival in horrible conditions.

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

The single most powerful story ever written

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