Project Gen (Organization)

Barefoot Gen is the powerful, tragic, autobiographical story of the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath, seen through the eyes of the artist as a young boy growing up in Japan. The honest portrayal of emotions and experiences speaks to children and adults everywhere. Barefoot Gen serves as a reminder of the suffering war brings to innocent people, and as a unique documentaion of an especially horrible source of suffering, the atomic bomb. This...

Gen finds a printer willing to print the eyewitness account "Papa" has written. When it has been printed and distributed, the U.S. Army censors become angry and teach them a difficult lesson. When Koji, Gen's brother finally returns home, he finds their mother on her deathbed.

"The year is 1953. Now an apprentice sign painter, Gen has become a skilled artist, while his friends run a thriving dressmaking business. Gen falls in love for the first time, but fails to notice that a good friend has been caught in the clutches of drug addiction. Heartbreak and loss await Gen as the atomic bomb continues to wreak havoc on the lives of people in Hiroshima years after the fact. Yet these tragedies also inspire Gen to make the big...