Witness To Apocalypse

"Harry,” asked Winston. “Do you think St. Peter will have a couple of things to say to us?” It was a decision that would haunt Harold S. Truman and drive Winston Churchill to horse tranquillisers. On August 6th 1945, with the Japanese Imperialist forces already reduced to a rabble and on the verge of complete surrender, an atomic bomb would decimate the city of Hiroshima, followed by a second such attack on Nagasaki days later.
For the Allied Forces, it marked the end of World War II. For the survivors, it was merely the beginning of an apocalyptic nightmare. Already demoralised and starving, the populations of these devastated cities suddenly faced the horrors of radiation sickness and societal collapse. It’s a chaotic period Keiji Nakazawa remembers all too well. The revered manga artist was just six years old when the A-bomb hit Hiroshima, killing most of his family.
“I dug my father, sister and brother out of the ruins,” he recalls. “Their skulls and the other bones were intact. I thought humans became things like that when they were burnt.
“When my mother’s body was cremated, however, there were very few bones. It made me shake with anger that the atomic bomb radiation deprived my mother, who had survived for twenty-one years after, even of her bones. I vowed then never to endure wars and atomic bombs.”
True to his word, Keiji-san, then 27 and already well established as a creator of racing-car and baseball comics, turned his attentions to painful formative events of his youth.
Commandeering his medium for the purposes of peace activism, he began work on Struck By Black Rain, the first manga to deal with the bomb, less than a week after his mother’s death.
He continued with this theme throughout the ‘60s in his socially aware ‘peace’ series, creating such influential pieces as One Day Suddenly, I Saw It and his heartbreaking autobiographical masterpiece, Barefoot Gen.
The original six-part serialisation of Barefoot Gen – pronounced with a hard ‘g’ from the Japanese word meaning root – which appeared in the magazine Monthly Shonen Jump was quickly followed by a remarkably faithful animated film version in 1972 (with Nakazawa attached as writer and producer).
Though many are inclined to snigger at the notion of artists coming over all political, Gen had a profound impact.
This was, it must be noted, an era when the war was never spoken of. Hiroshima’s survivors could even be treated as lepers due to erroneous urban myths which held that radiation sickness could be contagious.
“Yes, they were,” agrees Nakasawa. “Even now, 60 years later, radiation victims live in fear and trembling of radiation effect and still, there is discrimination against them.”
The artist’s trailblazing work would revolutionise comics and anime, which suddenly became an acceptable forum for dialogue concerning Japan’s painful recent history.
With manga, Keiji-san observes, ‘You are free to pass on contents by depicting them interestingly.’
Indeed, the medium continues to inspire such remarkable films as Studio Ghibli’s Grave Of The Fireflies. Barefoot Gen, however, would create a political sensation far beyond its humble origins. Keiji Nakazawa immediately found himself in demand as a speaker all around the country and for 20 years his peace rallies would attract curious youths enquiring about the atomic disaster, a subject rarely broached in their history books.
“The city of Hiroshima and thinking people were making efforts to pass on anti-nuclear precepts,” he explains. “But it was not on a nationwide basis. Barefoot Gen made people at any age renew their awareness of the atomic bomb.”
The film’s initial release, an event that saw even noted right-wingers sobbing in cinemas, caused an opportunistic political scramble with all sides keen to capitalise.
The Japanese Communist Party attempted to court Nakazawa, an approach he politely declined. Sadly, this did little to stave off accusations of anti-Americanism and his Okinawa series, dealing with the contemporary extended US occupation there, was mysteriously cancelled.
While certain sectors of the Japanese media continue to characterise Nakazawa as a lefty Yank-bashing peacenik cartoonist, he insists that his motivations have always been rooted in a desire for peace and truthful historical record; “I make comic strips on neutral ground. I just can’t admit the thought that losers are always in the wrong. I am pursuing a decisive investigation of the war and the atomic bombs from the atomic bomb victims’ point of view. I like Americans. I merely cannot forgive the high-level leadership.”
He is equally critical of Japan’s Imperialist rulers. As Barefoot Gen opens, Nakazawa’s young on-screen alter-ego acts as a tour-guide through the appalling squalor caused by the Imperialist war effort.
Grown men are shown fighting over bowls from soup kitchens and his parents valiantly struggle to feed their three adorable children on meagre rations while grumbling about the regime.
“My father was against a war,” recalls the author. “He anticipated Japan’s defeat. He told me how Japan was having a reckless war. So I learned the truth of the war at the age of six.”
Like Nakazawa, the film’s hero Gen is en-route to school at 8:15 am when the bomb hits.
In an instant streets burn, trees disintegrate and human life is reduced to charred and mangled flesh. He and his heavily pregnant mother survive the impact and rush back to the family home, only to witness his father and siblings being consumed by fire.
Despite the horrors that ensue in the terrible aftermath, Gen remains determined to keep his mother and his prematurely-born sister alive, and like all six-year-olds, finds a playmate while scrounging for food and medicine.
Released here on DVD for the first time, with proceeds from the sales going to Warchild, Barefoot Gen remains a uniquely poignant viewing experience. For all the decadent horrors it documents, the film, like Nakazawa himself, offers a gorgeously hopeful message.
“I am not a peace campaigner but a mere manga artist,” says Nakzawa modestly. “I have been simply describing ideas and philosophy in comics. Wouldn’t it be time for present human beings to gather all our wisdom and stand up for peace?”
It’s a simple philosophy, but one not without its charms.