Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen) is a Japanese manga narrative about a boy, Gen, who's at Hiroshima when the town is ruined by the atomic bomb on 6th August 1945.
The manga was made by Keiji Nakazawa and relies on his own adventures as a Hiroshima a-bomb survivor. Exactly like Gen, Keiji Nakazawa was a schoolboy at Hiroshima in August 1945, but a couple of years older than the hero of this manga.
The narrative begins in 1945 at Hiroshima in which the six-year-old Gen resides with his loved ones. Gen's mom is pregnant at the time of this a-bombing. Gen has only arrived at college once the bomb explodes. Protected by a wall, he resides and rushes home throughout the ruined town, watching many horrible scenes of death, destruction and anguish as he belongs.
If he gets back he finds his dad, sister and brother have been buried alive under the ruins of the residence. His mom is in the street, desperate to assist thembut she and Gen cannot pull them free until they are absorbed by the advancing flames.
The Barefoot Gen manga series follows the fortunes of Gen because he spreads the immediate wake of the bombing and struggles to construct a brand new future for himself, his mother and a young boy whom they embrace in their loved ones.
Keiji Nakazawa started creating manga concerning the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima following the passing of his mother in 1966. His first narrative, Kuroi Ame ni Utarete (Struck by Black Rain), was roughly Hiroshima a-bomb lands as well as the postwar black sector. Back in 1972, Nakazawa wrote right about his own knowledge in a manga story titled Ore wa Mita (I Saw It), printed in monthly comic compilation, Shounen Jump.
Following that, he started work on Barefoot Gen. Barefoot Gen is noteworthy not merely for the picture account of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, but also because of its criticisms of Western militarism and political propaganda. In the very first volume of this ten volume collection, Gen's dad is detained and beaten up in custody for expressing anti-war thoughts and Gen has a challenging time of it in college consequently.
Hadashi no Gen was translated into many languages and has been among the first manga to be printed in English. Several film versions also have been created.
Lately, Keiji Nakazawa consented to be interviewed regarding his adventures in Hiroshima and in the aftermath of the Second World War in Japan. The interviews were filmed and made into a documentary DVD, published by Tomo-Corp in collaboration with Siglo, below the name Hadashi no Gen ga Mita Hiroshima (The Hiroshima That Barefoot Gen Saw)
Nakazawa Keiji remembers his childhood experience of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima town, and clarifies how producing manga - Japanese comic - handed him a way to state exactly what he'd undergone. This private expression was attained most notably throughout the Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen) manga series.
In the movie, Nakazawa Keiji visits locations in Hiroshima he had been comfortable with as a kid and takes us into the place where he had been standing when the bomb exploded. He explains what he observed, in proceeding and frequently harrowing detail.
Interesting details of life from 1940s Hiroshima will also be glimpsed, like the way he and other boys could play with at the building that's currently the A-Bomb Dome.
Nakazawa Keiji clarifies how he acquired a job as a manga artist and the way he began to draw manga coping with his own wartime experiences.
As he explains a number of his adventures, equal frames out of his manga tales are displayed, creating a vivid connection between Nakazawa Keiji's individual encounter and its final expression in picture images for mass-market comic monthlies like Shonen Jump.
A copy of the DVD, Hadashi no Gen ga Mita Hiroshima might be bought through the ANT-Hiroshima site. Please be aware that at present just the Japanese version can be obtained. Other movies about Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be found in English.