Review of Barefoot Gen

Keiji Nakazawa survived the bombing of Hiroshima, and grew up wanting to become a manga artist. He moved to Tokyo and told nobody there about his experiences until the death of his mother triggered a determination to call everyone involved to account for the bombing and the war. In Barefoot Gen he not only exposes the horrors of nuclear war, but also criticizes the militarization of Japanese society in the war years, and the sometimes abusive nature of its family traditions. The film retains the simple graphic style of Nakazawa's original art, which makes the horrors it depicts all the more terrifying. The film's images seem expressionistic, almost surreal, but they record what actually happens under a nuclear blast. Despite all that Gen has lost and endured, he is determined to live, making this a difficult film to watch, but an important and ultimately positive one. The trauma of Hiroshima haunts many anime, but only in Barefoot Gen do you really see what it was like at ground zero.