Ranked #300

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

Barefoot Gen is at the same time a compelling visual of the horrors of war and a cheesy soap opera; a devastating tale of courage and survival and a badly written one dimensional flick. Gen can be seen as the polar opposite of the epic masterpiece Grave of the Fireflies, for although they deal with similar subjects the way they go about doing it are completely different in both style and quality. Where Fireflies focuses on the small picture, one brother trying to care for his litter sister, Gen is bent upon showing the "big picture" of the war, the devastation that it brought upon the whole country. The difference is that in Gen, to get the desired emotional response they had to kill over 200,000 people, and when the mass deaths stopped so did the films quality; in Graves they only had to kill one, and that one death was more meaningful and more heartbreaking then all the millions of deaths in Barefoot Gen.

Gen is an energetic ten years old boy, living with his pregnant mother, his pacifist father, his overbearing older sister (about fourteen) and his loyal disciple, Shinji, whose maybe six years old. The war with America hasn't yet reached them in Hiroshima; they have food shortages, and every now and then they are rudely awakened by air raid sirens, but other than these inconveniences they are able to live their lives without the threat of being killed on a daily basis. But their mother is getting sicker, and baby in her womb is in danger of dying. Gen and Shinji take it upon themselves to find good, healthy food for her to eat. The movie is a feel good, heartwarming story about family trying its best to live their lives while their country falls apart around them; that is until August 6, 1945. On that fateful day Gen is on his way to school when he glances into the sky and sees a lonely B-29, the sun reflecting off its wings, flying overhead. A young girl beside him comments on how strange it is to see an American bomber all alone. Gen drops a pebble and bends down to pick it up; a moment later the sky turns white, a thunderous boom splits the air, and Gen looks on in horror as the girl who, seconds before, stood beside him took the full force of the atomic blast, her eyes melting out of their sockets, her skin instantly turning charcoal grey, skin peeling off her arms and legs. The visuals of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima is almost enough to make me a pacifist, its devastation so real and unquestionably brutal that only a heartless monster could watch it and not think about how evil war is. It’s all too much for anyone with a weak stomach; a small girl instantly turning into a skeletal; a baby suckling on the breasts of its already dead mother; a young boy trapped beneath the weight of his own home, screaming, pleading, for his mother to save him before the atomic fires burn him to death. A dead infant in its mothers arms; zombiefied children, transformed by the radioactive fire, shambling about in the ruble, their eyes and skin melted away, seeking out the relief of water and drowning to death once they find it. Gen survives by sheer luck, but his family isn't so fortunate. The death and sorrow of these twenty minutes of film are almost unsurpassed in film, anime or otherwise.

Unfortunately once the initial shock of the bomb subsides the weaknesses of the film return in full force, driving the memory of those twenty minutes away and forcing the viewer to suffer though another hour of bad writing, bad acting, and an overall bad war commentary. No attempt is made to make Gen into a rich, three dimensional character; he serves as a plot tool only, the eyes though which we are shown the devastation of the war, but little more. The film takes the most illogical plot turns, and the characters act and speak in ways that will make most people scratch their heads in confusion. When the filmmakers realize this, they kill someone else off, but this time the emotional impact is more like a cheesy soap opera then anything else.

Barefoot Gen is simply the cartoony version of Grave of the Fireflies. It is in every way Graves’s inferior, in animation, music, character development and plot, it fails in every way to match the creative guineas of Ghiblis classic film. Those who have never seen Graves might find this a breath of fresh air, but to those who have Gen will be nothing more than a cheap imitation, void of the same life and warmth which resonated so well with Graves. If not for the twenty minutes of death and suffering, this film would be nothing more than a bad war movie.

Film one; 3/5.
Film 2; 2/5.
Overall; 2.5/5. Rounded to three.

Replay value; low.
read more

What a horrible movie..And I don't mean horrible in like a PeeWee Herman or Micheal Jackson sorta way I mean horrible in a *cut wrist* sorta way. I'll admit that initially, since I had watched Grave of the Fireflies before this movie, that because the animation wasn't as realistic as it could have been that I wasn't sure if I wanted to watch it or not. However, I have always been interested in the events of World War 2 so I gave it a go. Wow...that's all I can really say. The story is something most of us already know. During WW2, the Enola Gay dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb over Hiroshima. This movie is about that experience, but shown through the eyes of a little boy. I have never seen a movie that showed these horrific events in such detail. We see people getting burned alive, dying in the streets, suffering, attacking each other..Some of it is very hard to watch at times. I know that comparing this film to Grave of the Fireflies is unavoidable due to them both taking place during WW2, but I consider this to be the more horrific of the 2. Watch them both though, but if you're already depressed, don't bother till you are happy cause the chances of you coming away from this movie in a happy-go-lucky mood are slim to none. read more

Barefoot Gen is one of the rare Anime films that everyone must see, at least once. If you've read the Manga then you might be a little disappointed by this movie, initially. This movie, in comparison to the Manga, lacks some of the Manga's emotional depth due to the movie cutting out most of the characters' establishing story. In this way, the feeling for the characters by the audience is diminished. Instead, the movie moves quickly to the day of the actual bombing of Hiroshima. In doing so, the movie forgoes much of the interpersonal violence that takes place in the Manga and replaces it with a much wider sweeping and graphic violence. The events during and following the bomb are depicted rather grusomely. The advantage of Anime as a medium is used to full effect here as the bomb's blast is depicted with such grotesque brutality that it is hard to watch. Indeed, the art is one of the big strengths of the film. There are scenes, pre-explosion, that are simply beautiful, beautiful animation and art. There are scenes during the explosion that depict events vividly that could scarcely be imagined by one who wasn't there. As well, after there are many well-animated scenes as well. The art is strong, and the direction, on the whole is largely good. The story, to some extent, bares that strength of direction out. There are many sad moments in the film as many, many people die and Gen is forced to find a way to survive in this new harsh world after the bomb. The emotional level of this movie can easily, and fairly, be compared to Grave of the Fireflies. However, where this movie (Barefoot Gen) is different from Grave of the Fireflies is in its tone. While Barefoot Gen is an immensely sad film for two-thirds of its length, overall it takes a more hopeful and encourageing 'never give up' look at life and events. While the art and the story are strong, the sound is not as wonderful. The theme music is fun, and otherwise ok, but nothing spectacular. Otherwise, the music is nothing to write home about, unfortunately. While it certainly has a highly developed and wonderful artistic style and strength, the music is not up to that same level. Overall, Barefoot Gen is the kind of movie that is very important - it tells an important story and it tells it well. It is not perfect - sometimes even too graphic to watch - but its an important film, beautiful artistically and otherwise, that teaches an important lesson through the eyes of someone who has seen the absolute worst. read more

Don't watch this movie. Not that it's a bad movie, by any means. It's just that if you've been taking antidepressants, or have a cynical view of the world already, this movie won't help improve your outlook on anything for the time that you're watching it. It's not a date movie. And it might not be the best movie to introduce someone to anime. However, it's a great film in its own right, and will tug at your heartstrings, and give you the sniffles, or at least a manly, single tear.

For those of you who haven't finished this part of your history books, skip this huge spoiler:
The city of Hiroshima gets bombed. People die. A lot of innocent people die. Barefoot Gen is WWII unfiltered, and unapologetic (and a little over-exaggerated, but you can suspend your belief because of the important point it's trying to make) . It doesn't pick sides, but exposes the horrors of war through animation, which makes scenes that would have been unwatchable a lot more palatable. (Seeing children turned to ash in a live-action movie... Eh. I haven't seen the live-action adaptations, but I'd probably feel worse after watching them)
Like the other super-sad-WWII-movie-people-mention-when-they-talk-about-animation-as-an-artform, Grave of the Fireflies, BG uses painted cells to show what the war would look like to children. That's probably the most heart-breaking part of all. The two brothers in the movie and other children experienced things nobody should ever have to-things that, unfortunately, real children had. It's like a memorial to the survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it's never preachy. In fact, I think I liked this better than GotF because of how hopeful (if somewhat cheesy) the ending was. But after the bleakness before it, it's a welcome relief.

read more