Keiji Nakazawa:

"Barefoot Gen"

A second-grade elementary school student, Gen Nakaoka, loses his father and siblings in the atomic bombing of August 6, 1945. In a burnt field, he comes across a boy who resembles Gen's late younger brother, Ryuta, and he endures poverty and hunger to grow up strong amid such others as A-bomb orphans who have joined a criminal gang and meet their death and survivors suffering from keloids and leukemia. This long manga story provides a frank expression of anger toward such matters as the adults who merely followed along with the times, militarism, deference to the United States, and the nations which advanced the development of nuclear weapons.

Anger over the bomb looting even bones
Wish for freedom of speech

Keiji Nakazawa

Born in 1939 in the city of Hiroshima. After graduating from Eba Junior High School, he drew comic books while working for a sign making shop. His first manga, "Spark One," was published in 1963. His first work on the subject of the atomic bombing, "Kuroi Ame ni Utarete" ("Struck by Black Rain") was issued in 1968 after he had offered the manuscript to various publishers for about a year. Later, he developed a cataract and the worsening disease made him decide to retire as a manga artist in 2009.

"On that day, my eyes became a camera," Keiji Nakazawa recalled. He saw people walking with their skin, burnt and peeled, hanging from their fingernails, and others suffering from fragments of glass that had pierced their bodies. The many scenes he depicted in his manga story are exactly like the conditions he witnessed after the atomic bomb exploded.

"Barefoot Gen" is the autobiographical story of a boy named Gen Nakaoka who doggedly endures despite the damage wrought by the bomb, including the loss of loved ones and deprivation. Gen's family and his experiences are based on Mr. Nakazawa's own life.

Mr. Nakazawa experienced the atomic bombing when he was six years old and a student at Kanzaki Elementary School. He lost his father, older sister, and younger brother in the blast. "The indescribable smell of decomposing bodies still lingers in my nose," he said. To convey the cruelty of the bombing, he purposely included some shocking scenes. "I was criticized for that," he recalled, "but most children told me that they could understand the gravity of the atomic bomb damage through such scenes."

After graduating from junior high school, he began working as a sign painter and continued writing comic books. In 1961, when he was 22 years old, he moved to Tokyo. At the time, people held a prejudice against atomic bomb survivors, feeling such things as "If you touch a glass used by an A-bomb survivor, you'll be exposed to radiation." As a result, Mr. Nakazawa avoided all mention of the "A-bomb" and didn't refer to the atomic bombings in his manga. However, the turning point came when his mother died in 1966.

After his mother's body was cremated, her bones crumbled into small fragments. "It made my blood boil to think that the atomic bomb deprived my mother of even her bones," Mr. Nakazawa said. That was the impetus for him to write about the atomic bombing. "Barefoot Gen" was serialized in a weekly magazine, starting in 1973, and was later published in book form. About 10 million copies of the story have been sold.

The title of "Barefoot Gen" is derived from the image of walking bravely through the wilderness of the bomb's aftermath. "If a manga isn't interesting, people won't read it," Mr. Nakazawa said. Thus, he imbued his story with the will to live and human emotion. Recalling the hunger he always felt back then, he used his own experience to show Gen trying to obtain food in a number of ways, often with a humorous touch.

He also depicted his family's life before the bombing. "I included my wish for freedom of speech," he said. "I want readers to know the terror of a society that brainwashes its people and won't permit them to speak their thoughts freely." His father was imprisoned because he had insisted that war was wrong. Though Mr. Nakazawa had planned to write a sequel to "Barefoot Gen," he now feels that "It's good that the story lingers on at the end."

Mr. Nakazawa would like to convey to children his belief that Japan should take a peaceful and diplomatic path, reaching out to all nations, instead of relying on military might. (Kensuke Murashima, Staff Writer)