Barefoot Gen

The manga depicts the story of Gen and his family struggling to overcome poverty and mistreatment during the peak of WW2. At that time, the government was forcefully trying to promote the effort of the losing war by brainwashing regular citizens to die for the Emperor. The family are treated terrible because the father is oppose of the war therefore they have to suffer from malnutrition, false accusations, and physical violence. Mr. Pak, their Korean neighbor and a few others sympathize and help them by providing rice, potatoes and positive comfort. They are called traitors because they are seen as disgraceful Japanese for their strong belief that war only brings hate against one another and peace is the only way everyone can stop causing killing for selfish political reasons. The father kept mentioning how those in power who started the war are enjoying three meals a day while staining their blood with millions of young Japanese deaths. It was especially delightful how the father never stop criticizing the government unfair misconduct behavior toward citizens who wanted to be left alone in order to live in peace and not worry constantly over their eldest son fighting a losing war which they were all misled to believe that Japan was winning. One scene really stuck me hard when a certain character who was drowning himself in alcohol to forget the reminder of his imminent death closing in because of his kamikaze mission that he didn't want to undertake. That feeling of not wanting to die for his mother and soon to be wife was enough for me to despise with all my heart the way the government abuse their authority and called citizens coward stating weak one-sided arguments about their disgrace as children of the Emperor.

I think the manga helps readers understand the suffering of helpless victims by providing a visual representation connecting the readers to the experiences of anti-war attitudes and negative belief concerning prejudice, crimes against humanity, lies on top of lies, etc. Compare to when we read novels filled with words leaving you with the conception of using your imagination, manga in its own rights provides a different sense of explicit details as well as cartoons drawing illustrate a direct approach to the humorous and dark side of human nature.

Discussion Question: Which do you prefer as a reader manga or novels? Does the manga art style or characters visual characteristics offer a better insight into the madness of WW2 than novels?