A review by krpollard
Barefoot Gen Volume 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima by Keiji Nakazawa

5.0

This should be required reading for everyone. Nakazawa brilliantly conveys the complexity of a nation at war, and the ways that everyday people are forced to act in unjust systems. He furthermore does so without ever suggesting that his characters have all the answers: Gen, the protagonist, makes mistakes as he learns how to think for himself; Shinji, Gen's little brother, often acts selfishly though he tries to learn to think of others; and their father, a self-proclaimed pacifist, beats his children out of love. I left this comic grappling with some heavy questions.