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Reviewed by Michael Aronson Barefoot Gen is one of those books. You know, the ones that should be required reading, either because they demonstrate a mastery of craft or have a story that simply must be read and revered. Nakazawa is certainly a fine illustrator, but it’s the story he tells, straight from traumatic personal experience, which is unlike any other that has or will be told. Except Maus. The comparison to Maus is apt in almost too many ways. Not counting the fact that Art Spiegelman provides the introduction, Barefoot Gen examines the horrors of World War II from the Japanese perspective. Although Spiegelman related the experiences of his father as a Holocaust survivor in Maus, Nakazawa was an actual survivor of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Though it’s unclear how much is fact and how much is fiction, it’s not wrong to read Barefoot Gen as a nearly autobiographical experience. Nakazawa witnessed the blind loyalty of Japanese citizens to the Emperor, endured the stigma of being one of the only families opposed to the war in his village, saw the flesh dripping off the bodies of those victims caught directly in the bomb’s blast. What he puts on the illustrated page is not necessarily realistic, but it is haunting and terrible all the same. Most of the first volume takes place well before the bomb is dropped. Though he sets the stage for the tragedy to come, the experiences of Gen’s family constitute a tragedy almost from the outset. Gen’s father is outspoken about his opposition to the war; he sees the famine it’s brought, the lives it takes and the values it twists, such as the group suicides who seek honor in taking their lives rather than face capture. Nakazawa looks down upon this so-called honor, instead focusing directly on the daily hardships in wartime and the futility of hope and superstitions. Not even painting a giant P on their roof, as the American POWs did to warn away their own fighters, can spare them from the wrath of the bomb. Rather than hope, Nakazawa, through Gen’s family, offers one of the greatest explorations of the concept of humanity ever put in print. Loyalty and sacrifice for an ideal mean nothing when fellow neighbors are in immediate need of help. Gen’s town turns on his family once they’re branded as traitors, but it’s those who still offer them food and support that stand out in the story. Mr. Pak is a Korean neighbor who was forcefully taken from his country and suffers prejudice among the Japanese village, but offers Gen’s family support in times of need in return for their acceptance and kindness to him. When Gen discovers a crippled window seller who faces serious debt and languishing business, Gen gets in trouble for smashing windows just so the man can get work. Gen’s older brother Koji even signs up for the air force as a demonstration that his family isn’t against the war effort. These demonstrations of human kindness and devotion echo louder than ever in America’s own era of fear-mongering and imperialism. It is absolutely vital that Last Gasp finish publishing all ten volumes of Barefoot Gen. It needs to be stocked in every library and put on every literature course curriculum that offers Maus. It is with no exaggeration that Barefoot Gen is probably the single most important comic series to come out of Japan. Interested in writing for MangaLife? We're always looking for talented reviewers and columnists, so drop us a line! Charles Webb Editor-in-Chief, MangaLife.com |
14 November 2010 12 November 2010
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