Barefoot Gen Volume Two - The Day After

Barefoot Gen Volume Two - The Day After

Last Gasp

A 234 page second volume sounds an extraordinary amount of time even to relate the day after the Americans atom bombed Hiroshima, suffice to say that is just a starting point.

As I've said countless times, and no doubt repeated myself in print too, I'm not one for the modern interpretation of a journey; my life's too short, I need to know there's a destination in site.

Fortunately Nakazawa's road is paved with meaningful incidents where there are insights and revelations, along with painful reminders of just how low mankind is perfectly capable of sinking and the odd touch of genuine tender humanity etched onto as a species.

The crux of the story hangs on Gen's pregnant mother being unable to breastfeed her new born daughter and his unwittingly going hell for leather through radiated bomb-struck rubbish tips and beyond in search of food for him family.

Amidst this Gen comes across several who like him have survived the nuclear attack but sent quite mad by it, and he chances upon a girl who he at first mistakes for his older (now dead) sister but befriends her nonetheless, although he is at first afraid to tell her how her face has literally melted from the radiation fallout for the girl has told him how she longs to grow up and become a dancer. He then comes across a lad he thinks is his dead younger brother but it's not and the lad is trouble being a leader of a gang of orphans who will steal and cause trouble to find food; and that's just a simplistic explanation for the youth will play a greater part in the story later.

Suffice to say this is one long horror tale filled with some rare moments of joy - for most children will find it even in the darkest of days.

This volume concludes with Gen's mother finding shelter with an old friend but even that is a tainted compromise.

This volume, as did the first, contains an introduction by Art Speigelman, a piece written by Kejii Nakazawa himself and an article on the Barefoot Gen worldwide educational project.