Barefoot Gen (1983)

As this anime was set in the "Grave of the Fireflies" and "Who's left behind?" era, this actually gives us a more extreme and a realistic approach of how an atomic bomb could just rip bodies into pieces within seconds. I honestly was pretty much speechless and felt I could just scream with horror coming out of my mouth. AIlthough i dont think people around me would appreciate it lol! Seriously though, I can only imagine what the screams sounded like and the cries of survivors searching for their loved ones. Ill tell ya, war is the worst decision that man has ever done and like there were no winners here.All I can say folks about this anime, that it is very hard to watch like i don't know how I go through it all but I guess, we have to remember what happened during that time and reflect how this kind of thing shouldn't have happened in the first case. May those who have perished during that time, rest in peace. You will not be forgotten <3

This film depicts the horrors of war, but fails to really impress me. The characters are unrealistic and the film is too preachy, which detracts from its greatness: Grave of the Fireflies, a movie with a similar theme, is a million times superior to this film and having watched it before I saw this, made me think this film was pathetic, though that's because anything looks pathetic compared to Grave of the Fireflies.Why is this film deeply flawed? Because of the lack of humanity in the characters: they really do not appear to take the horrors of war seriously enough and the film lacks subtlety, which is a very important element of a great film, such as Grave of the Fireflies.Still, despite its flaws I still found this film to be remarkably powerful in several senses. I recommend it, but it is not as remotely as great as Grave of the Fireflies.

I watched this after borrowing the 10 book set from the library. The film captures the main points and characters, and the bombing particularly is handled very effectively, but overall I was disappointed.In the books there are important themes that are either just glided over or dropped altogether in the film such as the society's anti-Korean sentiments, pro-war fervor, and fear of bombing victims (I was particularly impressed how critical the author was of the Japanese war government as much as he was of the American decision to bomb). As a characters reacted to these it gave them depth and humanness and set the stage for later difficulties, making the overall story great (I was moved to tears several times in reading). The movie's characters by contrast are pretty shallow and reactive and the more important sub-stories in the book become feel-good niceties, such as Gen's caring for the artist. At the end of the movie, you'll remember the big events, but not the characters.Since the story is so important the movie is still worth catching, but books are much better.

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.