Gen and his family are living in Hiroshima as Japan nears the end of World War II. Gen's father has come to believe that the war is unwinnable, thus earning the wrath of the town officials and, in turn, discrimination from the rest of their neighbors. Shunned by the local merchants and tradesmen, food becomes scarce for Gen and his family. All these concerns soon pale, however, as the American military begins its final assault on Japan with the unleashing of its terrible new weapon.
Barefoot Gen is, sadly so, based on the real stories of Keiji Nakazawa, a man who as a boy experienced the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. His life was serialized in 1970 and into the 80's, and showed how it'd been to be a six year old living 1 km away from the blast. Don't be fooled by it's cartonish exterior, Barefoot Gen is a nightmarish flashback to one of the most horrible events in history, seen through the eyes of a small boy. You'd think that a animated film would spare us from the worst parts of the tragedy, but no, all the gruesome details of both the bombing itself and its aftermath are portrayed.
The amount of hardships and heartbreak Gen goes through is soul crushingly tough, and I can't understand how anyone could have managed to get through it all. A truly powerful film that everyone should watch, as it is one of the most important films that tells the story of that fateful day in 1945. Barefoot Gen is actually the film which I have viewed the most times out of every other film on this blog, and that's kind of crazy. I think it's because I find this period in history wildly interesting, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, and Barefoot Gen isn't afraid of showing us the horrible consequences of it all.
Genre: Animation/Biography/Drama
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