{"id":33531,"date":"2025-08-15T08:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T08:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=33531"},"modified":"2025-08-11T15:27:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T15:27:17","slug":"barefoot-gen-volume-10-never-give-up-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/08\/15\/barefoot-gen-volume-10-never-give-up-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Barefoot Gen volume 10: Never Give Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Keiji Nakazawa<\/strong> (Last Gasp)
\nISBN: 978-0-86719-601-6 (TPB) 978-0-86719-840-9 (HB\/School Edition)<\/p>\n

Whilst we are all commemorating the 80th<\/sup> anniversary of VJ Day (the Americans hold theirs on September 2nd<\/sup>), it\u2019s only appropriate to remember how that war ended and what victory and defeat meant to a world forever changed after the conclusion. In comics, that means Keiji Nakazawa and Hadashi no Gen<\/em><\/strong>. A standby of anti-nuclear movements since first release in 1983, new hardback editions combining two paperback editions per volume are underway and will be on sale from January 15th<\/sup> 2026 – if we manage to live that long. You could wait or even check out our past reviews or simply save your time & energy by buying the still-available 10 tank?bon set right now.<\/p>\n

After many years of struggle the entire piecemeal epic semi-autobiographical saga was remastered as an unabridged and uncompromising 10-volume English-language translation by Last Gasp under the auspices of Project Gen: a multinational organisation dedicated to peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons. Constantly revised and refined by its creator until his death from lung cancer in December 2012, Barefoot Gen<\/strong> is the quintessential anti-war tract and plea to humanity for peace. The combined volumes are angry and uncompromising, and never forgive those who seek to perpetuate greed, mendacity and bloody-handed stupidity.<\/p>\n

Hadashi no Gen<\/em> was first seen in Japan in 1973, serialised in Gekkan Shōnen Janpu Jampu<\/em> (Monthly Boys Jump<\/strong>) following an occasional 1972 series of stand-alone stories in various magazines which included Kuroi Ame ni Utarete<\/em><\/strong> (Struck by Black Rain<\/strong>) and Aru Hi Totsuzen<\/em><\/strong> (One Day, Suddenly<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

The scattered tales eventually led Shonen Jump\u2019s editor Tadasu Nagano to commission 45-page Ore wa Mita<\/em> (I Saw It<\/strong>) for a Monthly Jump<\/em> <\/strong>special devoted to autobiographical works. Nagano clearly recognised that the author – an actual survivor of the world\u2019s first atomic atrocity – had much more to say which readers needed to see and commissioned the serial which has grown into this stunning landmark epic.<\/p>\n

The tale was always controversial in a country which still generally prefers to ignore rather than confront past mistakes and indiscretions and, after 18 months, Hadashi no Gen<\/strong> was removed from Jump<\/em><\/strong>, transferring firstly to Shimin<\/em><\/strong> (Citizen<\/strong>), then Bunka Hy\u00e5ron<\/em><\/strong> (Cultural Criticism<\/strong>), and Ky\u00e5iku Hy\u00e5ron<\/em><\/strong> (Educational Criticism<\/strong>). Just like his indomitable hero, Keiji Nakazawa never gave up and his persistence led to a first Japanese book collection in 1975, translated by the newly-constituted Project Gen team into Russian, English and other languages including Norwegian, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, Indonesian, Tagalog and Esperanto.<\/p>\n

Born in March 14th<\/sup> 1939 and changed forever on August 6th<\/sup> 1945, the hibakusha <\/em>(\u201catom bomb survivor\u201d) author first completed his account in 1985 and his telling testament of survival has since been adapted into live-action & anime films; operas; musicals and live television dramas; each spreading the message across every continent and all generations.<\/p>\n

Today we\u2019re looking again at the concluding volume which brings the story of irrepressible, ebullient Gen<\/em> and his friends to a close. One last time we see the forceful vitality of a select band of bomb survivors pitted against the constant shadow of tragedy which implacably dogs them in the city slowly recovering from nuclear conflagration.<\/p>\n

Here the indomitable idealistic individualist, having finally found a way to express his anger and effectively fight back against the idiocies and injustices of a world which lets Atom bombs fall but is seemingly incapable of learning from its mistakes, at last strikes back at the demagogues and monsters who still keep the bad old ways alive… even after their people suffered the most hideous of consequences…<\/p>\n

Barefoot Gen: Never Give Up<\/strong> begins following an inspirational \u2018Gen\u2019s Message: A Plea for Nuclear Abolition\u2019 <\/em>by the Translators & Editors and – as previously – the other end of this monochrome paperback balances the essay with a biography of the author and invaluable data \u2018About Project Gen\u2019<\/em>…
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\nThe graphic manifesto resumes in March 1953 as Gen prepares for his school graduation ceremony, despite seldom attending that hidebound institution over the past few years. Fellow bomb orphans Ryuta<\/em> and quietly stolid Musubi<\/em> – who have shared Gen\u2019s shabby shack for years – are also in high spirits. They have been constantly selling dresses made by radiation-scarred outcast Katsuko<\/em> on Hiroshima\u2019s rebuilt street corners, diligently saving the proceeds until she has enough money to open a shop. Now the manager of one of the big stores wants to buy all the clothes they can manufacture to sell in his fashionable venues…<\/p>\n

At the Graduation Ceremony Gen once again loses his temper when the faculty begin memorialising the past and celebrating the failed regime of the empire. Later, his savage confrontation with teachers and visiting dignitaries sparks a minor student revolution. For many of the juvenile delinquents it\u2019s also an opportunity to inflict some long-delayed retribution on the educational bullies who have oppressed and beaten them for years…<\/p>\n

Encouragingly, however, not all parents and attending adults take the teachers\u2019 side, and a potentially murderous confrontation is (rather violently) defused by Gen. The boy\u2019s life then changes forever when he bumps into a young woman and is instantly smitten. His pursuit of Mitsuko<\/em> will bring him into conflict with her brutal father, former employer and unrepentant war-lover Nakao<\/em> who is now a highly successful businessman going places in the reconstructed city…<\/p>\n

Gen has been studying with elderly artist Seiga Amano<\/em>, learning the skills his own father would have passed on had he not died in 1945. The mentor\/father-figure encourages his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 to pursue Mitsuko… and it costs them both their jobs. However, the seeming setback is in fact liberating and before long the star-crossed youngsters are in a fevered euphoria of first love. So engaged is Gen that he is not there when stolid Musubi is targeted by a cruel Yakuza honeytrap who addicts him to drugs before fleecing him of all Katsuko\u2019s hard-earned savings…<\/p>\n

With a happy ending so close he can touch it, Gen is dragged back down to earth by a trio of tragedies which leave him near-broken and all alone. The legacies of the bombing have again cost him almost everything…<\/p>\n

After a horrendous bout of death and vengeance-taking, Gen seems to have nothing to live for, but the despondent young man is saved by aged Amano<\/em> who rekindles his spirit and wisely advises him to get out of Hiroshima and start his real life in the world beyond it…<\/p>\n

Keiji Nakazawa\u2019s broad cartoon art style has often been subject of heated discussion; his simplified Disney-esque rendering felt by some to be at odds with the subject matter, and perhaps diluting the impact of the message. I\u2019d like to categorically refute that.<\/p>\n

The style springs from his earliest influence, Osamu Tezuka, Father of Anime & God of Manga who began his career in 1946 and whose works – Shin Takarajima<\/em><\/strong>\/New Treasure Island<\/strong>, Tetsuwan Atomu<\/em><\/strong>\/Astro Boy<\/strong> and so many more – assuaged some of the grim realities of being hibakusha, providing escape, hope and even a career path to the young illustrator. Even at its most bleak and traumatic the epic never forgets to shade horror with humour and counterpoint crushing loss with fiery idealism and enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

As such the clear line, solid black forms and abstracted visual motifs act as tolerable symbols for much of the horror in this parable. The art defuses but never dilutes the horror of the tragedy and its aftermath. The reader has to be brought through the tale to receive the message and for that purpose drawings are accurate, simplified and effective. The intent is not to repel (and to be honest, even as they are they\u2019re still pretty hard to take) but to inform, to warn.
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\nShocking. Momentous. Bleak and violent but ultimately astoundingly uplifting, Nakazawa\u2019s Barefoot Gen<\/strong> is without peer and its legacy will be pervasive and long-lasting. So now you\u2019ve been warned, buy this old book. Buy the entire series. Buy the new editions as they come out. Tell everyone you know about it. Barefoot Gen<\/strong> is an indisputable classic and should be available to absolutely everyone.
\n\u00a9 2009 Keiji Nakazawa. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Keiji Nakazawa (Last Gasp) ISBN: 978-0-86719-601-6 (TPB) 978-0-86719-840-9 (HB\/School Edition) Whilst we are all commemorating the 80th anniversary of VJ Day (the Americans hold theirs on September 2nd), it\u2019s only appropriate to remember how that war ended and what victory and defeat meant to a world forever changed after the conclusion. In comics, that … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Barefoot Gen volume 10: Never Give Up”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[335,239,255,104,122,125,25,93,156],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-drama","category-environmentalism","category-graphic-autobiography","category-historical","category-humour","category-japanese-comics","category-war-stories","category-world-classics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8IP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33531"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33538,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33531\/revisions\/33538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}