Barefoot Gen (Mature)

[Namo]

Barefoot Gen is a 1983 Anime Film about that dreaded day, August 6th 1945, when Hiroshima was bombed. The story follows 10 year old Gen as he survives the horrors of the bombing, and the aftermath that follows.

Everything starts out seemingly normal. Gen and his brother Shinji are in a wheat field with their father. Their father says that, like the wheat, people should always grow strong and tall in order to serve a purpose. Later on, we learn that this family is expecting another child, but the family is too poor to afford ration cards, so their mother is suffering malnourishment, which isn't good for the baby.

A warning siren goes off late at night, and all the people are led to a shelter. It's just a false alarm though. Gen's father points out, however, that Hiroshima has yet to have received attention from the opposing side of the war, despite being the same scale as other cities that have been attacked.

The boys Gen and Shinji hear from their neighbor that Carp's blood can help, so they go to steal their an old man's carp. After getting smacked around a bit, they explain their position, and the old man lets them off easy, admiring the boys for fighting for their mother.

Gen is seen carving a boat while talking with their father, who believes that the Japanese Government is being foolish for not backing out of World War II. He says that real courage is knowing what's wrong, and choosing to act against it.

The next day, Gen promises his brother Shinji that they'll play down by the river with the new boat he carved. However... the calendar reads August 6th... And as Gen is about to enter his school building, the bomber planes fly over head. From the view of the Bombers, the dropping of the bomb is seen as impassive and routine. And then, the most powerful and graphic part of the movie is shown... The bombing from the view of the Japanese.

It's a graphic sight to be seen, as the animators put special impact on the moment. People are running away, slowly perishing and disintegrating. A mother makes a futile attempt to shield her child from the blast. A girl falls victim, shown in great detail her demise. A dog attempts to run, but is soldered to the railway it attempts to flee over, and finally, we see Gen's family... His mother is blown from a balcony, but survives. His family is inside the house, Shinji being sprayed with glass shards, his father being crushed by a beam, his sister following suit.

Everything goes white, then black, and then Gen regains consciousness, miraculously, knowing full well what happened. The girl he was conversing with before the blast is half-disintegrated. And so, Gen begins his trek through the now in shambles Hiroshima. And what he sees is not a pretty sight.

The townsfolk who managed to survive are not as lucky as Gen to have been shielded by debris. They walk through the city, burned beyond recognition, skin hanging from their bodies, their faces ghastly. He sees a flaming horse run by, and he knows where it came from.

His house is on fire.

He begins to run towards his house, following a trail of flames, where he finds his mother, who thankfully is in as good condition as Gen, whose baby is still safe from harm in her mother's womb. However, Gen's father, sister, and brother are all trapped under a flaming beam. They attempt to free them, but its no use. It's too heavy for a pregnant woman and a small boy to lift. Gen's father tells him to watch over his mother and new baby sibling, as the weight of the beam cracks his skull. They have no choice but to leave them behind to perish...

And then, Gen's mother is ready to give birth. Gen can't find anyone to help, so he's got no choice but to deliver the baby himself. Once it's all said and done, Gen's mother is unable to feed the baby... she is still malnourished and has no milk to give her.

Later on, Gen and his mother and new born sister, whom he names Tomoko, attempt to help the agonizing citizens. Scarred, burned, and dehydrated, Gen and his mother give them water to drink. But immediately after drinking the water, they die. Sadly, it isn't the water itself; it isn't contaminated. The way the narrator described it; "Their overwhelming dehydration made them struggle to survive, and that struggle was the only thing keeping them from dying. Once their bodies were fully hydrated, they were under the impression that they didn't have to fight to live any more, and died."

Later, the Narrator says that the Japanese government had refused to withdraw, so the US dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Finally, Japan surrenders. Gen's mother is angry. She asks why now, why didn't they surrender before all of this happened?

Gen goes looking for food for his mother and baby sister, and finds some children walking around with rice balls, unready to share. They tell him that an army truck was giving away food by the bridge, but what he saw was much worse when he got there.

There were rows of dead, being dragged away by the army, being treated like garbage. In the end, Gen didn't get any food, but however, he stumbles upon a sickly soldier, who is losing hair and bleeding from both ends. When he takes him to a hospital via a handmade stretcher, the doctor informs him there's nothing he can do.

Frustrated, Gen wanders about, and stumbles upon a warehouse full of charred rice. He starts digging deeper into the piles and finds pickled radishes and unburned rice, so now his family can eat.

A small kid sneaks in on their dinner, who looks just like Shinji. His name is Ryuuta Honda, and Gen and his mother decide to adopt him as Gen's new brother.

The boys begin looking for some form of work so they can buy milk for their mom and sister, and find it in the form of taking care of a man who was injured gravely from the blasts. His older brother promises to give the boys 10 yen if they can take care of the man, by doing whatever he says, along with cleaning all the maggots off of him and clearing the flies out. But the man acts like a spoiled brat, so Gen refuses to work for him any longer, and slaps the decrepit man. He begs them not to go and asks Gen to keep slapping him, claiming any kind of human contact is good human contact, because his brother can't stand him anymore. He decides to try to paint again, and the brothers receive 100 yen as a reward.

They instantly go to the market to buy milk, and they buy about 50 cans of it. But when they get back home, their mother is silent, cradling a pale baby. The boys were just a little too late... Their mother informs them she had closed her eyes and gone cold just moments before they arrived with the milk.

Gen and Ryuuta go to the river the next day, where Ryuuta tells Gen that someone told him grass may not grow for another 70 years. But as the boys walk down the street, they see wheat stems beginning to sprout. Gen recalls his father's words... and so, he makes another boat.

They place a lantern in it and light it, and send it sailing down the river. This is a sign of hope.

And the credits roll here.

All in all, it was a very touching, beautiful, and emotionally powerful movie. No movie has ever made me cry 3 times while watching it, and I highly recommend it to everyone. You should watch it, its available in English on youtube.