Barefoot Gen, Volume Two by Keiji Nakazawa

It's a long, long, long time since I read this, but I recall that much later volumes finally see him taken under the wing of a kindly artist, start to express himself and then find love, but the effects of the bomb are never far off, nor other hard realities like the corrosive effects of drug addiction, and the arms industry given a business boost by Korean War. Intense doesn't even begin describe this, plus you can also see so much of Tezuka in here. BAREFOOT GEN serves as a reminder of the suffering war brings to innocent people, and as a unique documentation of an especially horrible source of suffering, the atomic bomb.'įirst of ten books in which young Gen has to grow up very fast indeed, and everyone is dripping in sweat which doubles as comicbook shorthand for extreme anxiety or the level of hysteria generated when your experiences are no longer comprehensible or compatible with any sane response. The honest portrayal of emotions and experiences speaks to children and adults everywhere. 'Barefoot Gen is the powerful, tragic, autobiographical story of the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath, seen through the eyes of the artist as a young boy growing up in Japan. Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of MAUSĪ true manga classic, finally re-emerging into print. 'This vivid and harrowing story will burn a radioactive crater in your memory that will never let you forget it'.'

Barefoot Gen, Volume Two by Keiji Nakazawa