Barefoot Gen

Barefoot Gen – 1983, Mori Masaki



Yep, it’s Hiroshima the cartoon.



Actually it’s Hiroshima the comic book. Barefoot Gen was written by Keiji Nakazawa who was born in Hiroshima in 1939 and survived the atomic bomb. He wrote Barefoot Gen which was published in Japan between 1973 and 1985 and was based upon his experiences of growing up in wartime, the atomic bomb, radiation poisoning and post-war Japan.

Lots of Japanese manga comics are adapted into feature length animated films. They tend to be as good as the source material, the best ones receiving international cinema release, or at the very least an English dub video release. This can be used as a barometer of which manga are the best and which are the most culturally important in Japan, where comics are more widely read that anywhere else. The importance of Barefoot Gen is demonstrated by the number of adaptations; at least one TV drama, three live action films and two animated films based on the various volumes of the manga.

The first animated film is probably the most widely seen internationally, deservingly so. It starts off as a happy tale about Gen and his family living during The War; rationing, air raids, mucking in and getting by reminiscent of the fondly remembered wartime spirit that arose during The Blitz. There’s lots of fun and japes with most of the humour derived from the fact that Gen and his younger brother are so hungry all the time. The proud Japanese work ethic is espoused through Gen’s hardworking parents.

When the bomb is dropped the tone changes dramatically. The second half of the film makes for grim, almost difficult watching, but it’s incredibly compelling. After he is left alone to care for his pregnant mother, Gen remembers his father’s words and works tirelessly for her, coming up against all the horrors that came in the aftermath of ‘Little Boy’.

Barefoot Gen is an important story about an important subject. The cultural impact that two atomic bombs will have on a nation is a topic too significant for any mere blogger to attempt to cover or even summarise in a single post. The same goes for the subject of how comics can help a society express its shared but unspoken thoughts and emotions.

I will however muse upon the effect of nuclear war on a certain niche of Japanese comics and animated films. Barefoot Gen is explicitly about the bombing of Hiroshima, but another famous and successful amine is certainly inspired by the Japanese post-war experience; Akira.

Akira is a film about change. In the film there is political unrest in Japan, the government is almost powerless, and mankind itself may be on the verge of some kind of evolution. The film’s climax is the mutation of Tetsuo into a huge mass of pulsating flesh (famously parodied in a certain South Park episode).

But on a deeper level Akira is about the change each generation notices in the next. The generation born in Japan in the 40s and 50s were malnourished and downtrodden, but they worked hard after the war and were able to see their children live in much better times. The difference physically between the two generations was remarkable. Imagine if almost every child born in a generation grew to be considerably bigger and stronger than their parents. Daunting to say the least, and this has had an effect on Japan culturally, the best evidence of this (in my opinion) is Akira.

A lot of Japanese animation is worthless guff about lesbian schoolgirls, but the good stuff is really worth checking out. It’s a shame that it’s so easy to dismiss due to the bad first impression it often makes; there’s a lot more to Ghost In The Shell than just a naked bird with big tits running around shooting people, but I’ve given up trying to explain that to people at parties.