Ranked #287

Barefoot Gen

"I dug my father, sister and brother out of the ruins. Their skulls and other bones were intact. I thought humans became like that when they were burnt. When my mother's body was cremated however, there were very few bones. It made me shake with anger that the atomic bomb radiation deprived my mother, who had survived for 21 years, of even her bones. I vowed never to endure wars or atomic bombs"

(Taken from an interview with Nakazawa Keiji by Jonathan Clements.)


On Moday. August 6, 1945, the US bomber Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb known as "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The explosion killed around 70,000 people immediately, with almost as many again dead from the resulting radiation by the end of 1945.

Nakazawa Keiji, the author of Barefoot Gen, was 6 years old at the time of the bombing, and is one of the survivors of the destruction of Hiroshima. The bomb was responsible for the death of his father, his sister, and his brother. At the age of 6 he and his mother dug their remains out of the ruins of their home. In 1963 Nakazawa moved to Tokyo to become a manga artist, but returned to Hiroshima in 1966 to attend his mothers funeral. It was his discovery of the true impact of the radiation from the bomb that inspired him to risk becoming a pariah by openly discussing his experience of the bomb with the first of his "Black" series, Beneath the Black Rain.

Barefoot Gen is the autobiographical account of his experience of the bomb and radiation. The manga was fraught with problems because of it's nature and content, and was effectively sidelined by mainstream publications. In 1976 however, a volunteer group called Project Gen was formed, and they took on the task of producing english translations of the manga. In truth, Barefoot Gen was the first manga to be translated and published in english.

Story

As the story in Barefoot Gen is autobiographical it is difficult to give it any score. The anime loses out to the manga in certain repects because sections had to be left out. However, this in no way takes away from the story which remains an accurate, if abbreviated, account of Nakazawa's experience of the bomb and it's aftermath.

Art

The art style in Barefoot Gen is unusual in that it adopts a more "cartoony" approach compared to other anime. However, the anime manages to attain a certain ethereal quality that the manga cannot match, especially in it's depiction of the results of radiation sickness. The atomic blast is rendered with shocking clarity, and the transformation of people into "monsters" (from Gen's perspective), is horrifyingly realised.

Althought production values may be dated (the anime is 25 years old now), the movie should not be marginalised on the basis of "poor" animation. The cartoon like quality of the characters only adds to the emotional impact of the movie as it is a stark contrast to how "normal" cartoon characters are depicted.

Sound

This is another area where the movie shows it's age. The sound effects, although well used, can sometimes be overwhelming for the viewer, while at other times the various noises are relegated to the background. This can give the movie a slightly "off-kilter" feeling for some viewers, but for the most part the sound and visuals work well together.

The music is generally good throughout the movie.The various pieces used to enhance the impact of a given scene are generally appropriate, and although is is at times foreboding, the film is well served in the scores it uses.

Characters

This is another area that is difficult to apply a score to. The characters in Barefoot Gen are generally taken from the people that nakazawa met before, during and after the bombing, whilst Gen himself is Nakazawa as a child. Because of this things like character developmentand interaction are difficult to consider, especially given the fact that this is not a fictional account.

Enjoyment

Watching this movie is a truly harrowing experience. There is no real way to "enjoy" this movie in normal terms given it's history and content. Very few movies, especially animated ones, are able to achieve the level of emotional impact that Barefoot Gen achieves. Only Grave of the Fireflies can be considered it's equal in terms of content and viewing experience (although GotF deals with the aftermath of the firebombing of Kobe, and is semi-autobiographical in nature).

Overall

Although there are similarities between GotF and Barefoot Gen, there are major differences as well. It is extremely difficult to compare any other anime or manga to Barefoot Gen (aside from GotF), as no other work is taken directly from real life. If you decide to watch Barefoot Gen then you cannot compare it in any way to shows like NGE, Death Note, Akira, or any other popular movie or series. You cannot use normal standards to judge this movie.

This isn't a movie to enjoy, even though it ends on a hopfeul note. This is a movie to be experienced, as it is the story of a boy who has literally seen hell. It is both a lesson and a warning for future generations of the true horror of nuclear and atomic weapons, and I urge every anime and manga fan to read the books and watch the movie. read more

"The bombing of Hiroshima, as seen through the eyes of a boy."

Barefoot Gen: 9/10

A line from Apocalypse Now kept creeping into my head whilst I watched this - "The horror, the horror..."

Barefoot Gen more than lived up to my expectations. I'd read before watching that it's very similar to Grave of the Fireflies, it being story about children trying to survive during World War 2, and they are indeed worthy of being spoken of in the same breath. There aren't many films, live-action or animated, that have the sort of impact these films do on viewers.

Barefoot Gen is a story told from the viewpoint of a child, the story being about the Hiroshima bombing. Instead of rushing into the bombing, time was spent showing the viewer Gen's (Gen is the main character) family and how they struggled to survive with little to no food. Gen spent a lot time with his younger brother during the early section, trying to find food for their pregnant mother and, basically, acting like kids do. This early pre-bombing section was good because it allowed viewers to become emotionally attached to the family and made them want the family to survive.

And then, suddenly, the atomic bomb hits and, in graphic detail, you see people falling apart and getting burnt alive. Eye sockets fall out, skin melts...it wasn't easy to watch. Gen then rushed back to home to find his father, brother and sister all stuck under their house, which had collapsed due to the blast. After Gen and his mother couldn't lift what their family was stuck under, Gen had to pull his mother away from their family in order to save themselves due to the fire spreading, but Gen first made a teary-eyed promise with his father - his father made him make a non-verbal promise that he'd protect his mother and the child growing inside her.

It continued like that until the end. It was realistic to the point of being painful to watch. Animation or not, it was hard not to see what was happening as real. Barefoot Gen was based on the real life story of the author, so it'd be wrong to view as "just a silly cartoon" because of the lack of real actors, but it's rare for animation to have that sort of impact on me.

There were a few things I wasn't impressed with, such as the semi-annoying voice actor of Gen, how easily Gen's brother was allowed to be replaced by someone who looked like him and how well Gen and his mother handled losing their loved ones, but the good outweighed the bad. It was a wonderful film, and I highly recommend it to anyone with interest in the more realistic side of anime.

Note: I'm going to include a little extra, going into some detail about the sequel. It's too short to post as a review on its own so I decided to add it to my review of the first film.

Barefoot Gen 2: 7.5/10

Barefoot Gen 2 continues the story 3 years after the end of the first film. Japan has started to return to normal but there are still problems like starvation and people being homeless. The bombing resulted in a lot of kids having their entire families killed and that obviously meant there were a lot of kids living on the street, unable to even get education because people need to pay to go to school in Japan. The story in this film focuses on a group of kids Gen befriends and shows how, even after the bombings had stopped, Japan was still far from repaired.

In all honesty, there didn't need to be a sequel made. The first film covered everything important and only the left the aftermath, which was never going to be as powerful as what came before, to be shown. The film had potential but a lot of the potentially interesting aspects, such as how people with burns from the atomic bomb were treated like monsters, were never looked into too deeply. Although I didn't feel the film was bad, I felt it wasn't made with the same amount of effort as the first and, quite simply, the story was weaker due to it not having to cover anything as horrific as what was shown in the first film.

A decent sequel, and a very nice DVD extra (both Barefoot films are on the same disc), but not worthy of a high rating. read more