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Barefoot Gen

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Barefoot Gen, a semi-autobiographical ten-volume manga series, was inspired by author Keiji Nakazawa's (March 14, 1939 - December 19, 2012) own experiences as a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima. The series tells the story of Gen Nakaoka, who, at the age of 6, loses his father, brother, and sister, to the fires of Hiroshima, closely mirroring Nakazawa's own atomic bombing experiences. In particular, Gen's father was a staunch anti-war advocate, and had instilled a longing for peace and a disdain of the militarism of Japan into his son. After the bombing and the complete annihilation of their old way of life, Gen and his mother spend the early parts of the series looking for a place in the world; they adopt an oprhaned boy named Ryuta, struggle to provide food for themselves, and grappling with the American occupation of Japan and particularly, their responsibility for the bombing.

A major element of Gen's story is his role in helping people remember themselves and their humanity after the bombing. He becomes particularly interested in art after working as a caretaker for Seiji Yotsuba, an artist who lost the ability to hold brushes following the bombing and whose family was too disgusted by his injuries to care for him. Gen talks friends out of suicide multiple times, including his friend Natsue who had been mocked for her facial burns, consistently setting their frustration and anger back towards militarism and the government rather than despairing at their own circumstances. Gen's coming of age and maturation is one of the stories main plot points; as he ages, he further begins speaking out against war and the American occupation. One notable example sees Gen struggle to find a publisher for a late man's atomic bomb-centered novel due to fears over angering the Americans, yet he perseveres, and gets the novel published in a prison. The series concludes with Gen travelling to Tokyo, in order to pursue his dream of and love for art, a subject he has long admired for its ubiquity and ability to reach people.

Human Reaction to the Atomic Bombing

Gen's journey continually sees him in a position where he needs to emotionally support people; talking his friend Natsue down from suicide and encouraging Seiji Yotsuba to continue painting with his mouth even when he couldn't hold a brush are two impactful examples. Why had the atomic bomb left these people, and in a larger sense, the Japanese citizenry, in such a state? Both Seiji and Natsue's mental states resulted in people avoiding them due to fear and uncertainty about the nature of the atomic bomb. People in the story commonly refer to it as "the bomb," often excluding mention of the nuclear nature of the weapon. Whether this is a translating quirk or an intentional choice, I believe it fits perfectly with the state of the Japanese populous at time. There was no concern whether or not this bomb had "nuclear" origins, or what was driving it, it was a bomb that had wreaked havoc upon their lives, so nothing else was significant.

Further uncertainty revolved around the radiation sickness experienced by bombing victims; Barefoot Gen depicts this as largely (and falsely) misunderstood to be contagious. This is a key source of social stigma faced by many bombing victims, alongside their physical appearance. Nothing is known about this, only calling it "the atomic bomb's poison" (Nakazawa 6.159) or "[Seiji's] disease" (Nakazawa 3.159) in each case. The energy source is unimportant, only that this mysterious bomb was different than all the others and resulted in intense illness, though this is seldom attributed to the unique nature of the atomic bomb.

As such, energy afterlives rear their head in a discouraging, sad way; through fear. The fear of any sort of unique and novel scientific advancement due to the scarring (physical and mental) affects of the atomic bomb. In the post-war period that Barefoot Gen chronicles, this makes sense; confusion, fear, and uncertainty swirled around the horrifying explosions. People impacted were dropping dead days later. The characters understand very little about why this is happening, and most horrifyingly, how its transmitted, thinking it to be contagious  and shunning impacted members of society. This fear drives people to turn on their own family members, leave them to rot in their own blood, and harass total strangers for having a mysterious, deadly disease, in the case of Natsue. While some characters, such as Gen, are driven by a love for humanity and people, the vast majority of Japanese society is depicted as cruel, and avoidant of this mysterious energy source, allowing it to warp their views on humanity, and even shun relatives.

Barefoot Gen is perhaps most horrifying when considering that it is largely autobiographical. Many experiences born by Gen are likely similar to ones faced by Nakazawa. The cold, societal conditions displayed throughout the story truly depict that, despite all of the atomic bomb's destructive power, it additionally evidenced a hidden, unseen ability to destroy the fabric of a civilization by replacing community and care with fear and loathing. As the first and only place to be subject to an atomic bombing, post-war Japan experiences this horrid blend of social and medical doom as a result of the bomb, and it threatens to tear apart any sense of community still present in Gen's life. Rather than coming together after disasters as we often imagine a populous to do (such as how our country idealizes and romanticizes America's unity after September 11th, 2001), Japanese citizens become more secluded, exclusionary, and reactionary than ever before as a result of the horrors of war inflicted upon them, indicating that nuclear energy's destructive power extends far beyond the physical realm.

Bibliography

Nakazawa, Keiji. Barefoot Gen. Project Gen. 1978. Translated by Project Gen.

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