Forum - View topicBuried Treasure - Barefoot Gen
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Gilles Poitras
Posts: 476 Location: Oakland California |
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I just did a quick check and The Right Stuf has it in stock. However check the links for various retailers on this site so ANN get a little back on the sale.
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DuelLadyS
 Posts: 1705 Location: WA state |
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I actually agree on this- I'd blame it on the very cartoony character designs- while the events depicted are certainly very graphic, it's not too hard to have already distanced yourself from the people shown, considering their non-realistic look...especially since you know it's coming. You're gonna remember it tho' for sure (the girl at the wall comes immedately to mind as being poorly described here- she was standing half-in, half-out from the opening... meaning the exposed half of her was charred beyond recognition. That was pretty freaky for me.) Actually, more anime fans have seen this than probably realize- AMVHell 3 feautures a shortened take on this bombing sequence, set to the 'Drop the Bomb' DDR song. If that doesn't bother you, you can probably handle the whole movie. |
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The Ramblin' Wreck
 Posts: 924 Location: Teaching Robot Women How To Love |
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While certainly an important film, is it really "Buried"? Maybe the newer generation of fans don't really know about it, but it seems it was kinda at least well known by the previous ones.
Also, the manga keeps going, which is nice, dealing with post-war and Cold War issues. |
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irishninja
 Posts: 344 Location: Seattle-ish |
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I've been meaning to watch Grave of the Fireflies for some time now, but I had only vaguely heard about/of Barefoot Gen. Both, however, are now in my Amazon cart. Thanks for spurring me to action, Justin!
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18218 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Really? You guys/gals can sit through the scene where Gen's family dies without it bothering you at all? (That's the scene where I had to temporarily stop the movie and walk away for a while.) Justin's thoughts on the movie pretty much mirror my own from my 2006 review of the English DVD. Though the first Barefoot Gen movie certainly has more impact, the follow-up movie is better in every other respect. It also carries its own impact, particularly in the way that war orphans, and those disfigured by war-related injuries, are treated. I highly recommend it for anyone who's even partly a history enthusiast. I loaned my copy of this out to a social studies teacher in the school I was working in this past year for his WWII unit, and he said the (high school) students in class were remarkably subdued while watching it. |
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Berserkfury819
 Posts: 229 Location: Detroit Mi. Spider-Man is dead. R.I.P. |
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I confess I haven't seen this, but I have read the manga. Very powerful stuff, it makes you think. My grandfather fought in the Philippines during the war, and was stationed in Japan afterwards. So this kind of hits close to the family history. Good review Justin.
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bonbonsrus
 Posts: 1537 Location: Michigan, USA |
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Thanks Justin for bring this one to the front for people to check out. I have always said it was one of the most powerful anime I have seen, and I am happy to own it despite having only seen it once so far. My daughter has been bugging me for a few years now to see it again, she watched it with me and I was worried it would be too much for her, but apparently not. I haven't been ready yet to experience that again yet though.
I have seen other shows that made me cry more than this did, however I think that was only because I was so stunned that to cry wasn't possible for parts of it. That isn't to say I didn't cry at parts of this. I found this movie to be much more powerful and emotional than Grave of the Fireflies which I found to be more manipulative. Maybe it's getting to be time to watch this again... It certainly doesn't leave you soon after viewing. |
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3490 Location: Back stateside |
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I read the second volume of the manga, which covers the events in the days after the bomb was dropped, in a seminar class called "Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered" (about how Japanese and Americans remember and interpret the bombings differently). It hurt. It physically hurt. It gave me nightmares.
And why? Because this actually happened! The author of the manga saw these things, witnessed them when he was only seven years old. This is real, which is what makes it worse than anything I've ever read in a manga. And no, I don't think I could tolerate it in an anime. And then I went back and bought the first volume too, which covers the events up to the bomb dropping. I made a mistake of finishing reading it at around midnight, at which point I was curled up in the fetal position sobbing. Again - because this is a real story, not fantasy or science-fiction. This happened to real people. My question, though, because it isn't addressed in this review, would be, does the movie keep the part where Gen's father is an anti-war activist (based on Kenji Nakazawa's father)? His brutal treatment by the Japanese authorities and the way their family was ostracized for it was a major plot point throughout the first volume. I would be really upset if it was cut. And as for the "blame game"... in the manga translation at least, they just describe the Americans as wanting to end the war and not really thinking about what it would mean to the Japanese. Gen rages against everyone, including both the Americans and his own government, in the immediate aftermath. But more than anything, it had an all-around anti-war message. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the result of war, something that people must never let happen again. And now I'm getting choked up again as I remember the final moments of the first volume. |
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zanarkand princess
 Posts: 1484 |
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I remember watching this. It was pretty hard to watch. I would never want to see it again though I do recommend seeing it once. The scene when the bomb dropped was one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen in an anime, yeah I've seen stuff that would be considered worse but this actually affected me because it actually happened.
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nicomorr
 Posts: 127 Location: London, UK. |
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All what I would have said has been said, good postings, good article, very powerful anime.
I recommend Who's Left Behind? & Rail of the Star, both excellent, though I need to find a good print of Ushiro no Shomen Daare anime#4735 only seen in very low-res realplayer format. Zipang is another take on the WAR and what might have happened, a pity they didn't go further with it. Article 11 is taken very seriously it seems to me from my English-only readings on Japan. NMM |
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spoony
 Posts: 117 Location: Illinois, US |
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Great review! I'm really glad this is being brought to people's attention. I saw it for the first time a few months ago when a friend of mine was taking the class "Problems of Nuclear Disarmament" and was assigned to go to a showing of this movie and bring a friend to discuss it with (she invited me because she knew I liked anime). It was painful to watch, but definitely worth it.
It takes a different approach from Grave of the Fireflies; it's a lot more straightforward, plus I think there's time to get emotionally attached to more characters (in Grave of the Fireflies the focus was very much on Seta and Setsuko, where with Barefoot Gen you get to know his the whole family, which makes the tragedy all the more real). Also, let's not forget that the subject matter is different: Grave of the Fireflies is about the fire bombing of Kobe, not the atomic bombs. Both are very important films to watch.
I think you hit the nail right on the head here. When we watched the movie, I was a little turned off by the art style and the annoying dub actors at first (my usual anime critiquing tendencies kicking in). Pretty soon, though, that made no difference whatsoever, because the scope of this story went so far beyond that. This isn't about being a "good" anime, and it isn't "trying" to be tragic or drag an emotional response out of viewers. It doesn't need to. It just needs to be honest. The whole thing is REAL. It makes me feel sick thinking about it.
I don't remember too clearly, but I have only seen the movie and this sounds familiar to me. I don't know if they portrayed him as an "activist," but I'm almost positive that he did express clear anti-war sentiment in the movie. |
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Teriyaki Terrier
 Posts: 5689 |
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Although this movie looks well made, I don't think I'll ever watch it because of overall theme. But ages ago, I did watch a movie about this subject. Based off Justin's review and my overal opinion, this does look like a fantastic movie.
I agree. Politics will quickly derail this topic completely. |
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Anime World Order
 Posts: 389 Location: Florida |
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The other day my dad, who's in his mid-50s and doesn't watch anime or animated anything at all to speak of, asked me to lend him some anime movies to watch. That was his only real stipulation, really. He wasn't terribly concerned with genre or age or style. He just wanted to see some of this stuff that takes up all my living space and free time. The only specificity he noted was that one of the movies he wanted to see was Grave of the Fireflies, on account that I'd shown that movie to my aunt (his sister) about a decade and change ago back when she said "show me an anime movie." Perhaps it says something about me as a person such that titles like this are my "go-to" choices to represent anime to my relatives.
Despite the fact that my dad has never watched anime in his life, he must have vaguely remembered my saying that Barefoot Gen was a similarly-themed work to Grave of the Fireflies while listening to my review of Barefoot Gen where in I failed to pronounce "Gen" correctly even once. For the record, I don't normally pronounce it that way, but people had repeatedly been telling me I had been saying it wrong when in fact I hadn't. So in addition to Grave of the Fireflies, I also lent him Barefoot Gen. You know, so he could watch them back to back or something. It was a pretty good move on my part, as he actually liked Barefoot Gen quite a bit more than Grave of the Fireflies for the reasons currently being discussed. The other stuff I gave him: Metropolis, Princess Mononoke, Millennium Actress, Grave of the Fireflies, Spirited Away, and Memories. So welcome to anime, dad! I recommend everyone reading this adopt the same course of action with their parents. |
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Chrno2
 Posts: 6171 Location: USA |
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Yes, 'Barefoot Gen' is horrifying. Even dated it's still horrifying. When compared to 'Grave of the Fireflies' which is equally depressing. It's downright in your face no holds barred.
I did enjoy this film, and I could see how some have used this as a teaching tool when expressing events of the Hiroshima bombing. I've had the chance to read the novels as well and still reading them as they come out. They're pretty messed up as well as there is more to tell that the movie didn't. It shows you how Keiji Nakazawa wanted to drive his anti-nuclear message home. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3490 Location: Back stateside |
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"Activist" isn't quite the write word (you couldn't be politically active against the war, not if you didn't want to die), maybe "advocate" would be better. He doesn't hide that he's against the war. In fact, the way he talks about how war is something the wealthy wage against each other with the poor bearing the burden, my guess is he may have even been socialist or socialist sympathizer, which was a really bad thing to be at that time. Gen's father is arrested without reason given, jailed without charges, brutally beaten, then dumped unceremoniously back on their front lawn weeks later. It's a really harsh indictment of what Japan did to itself during WW2, even before we bombed them, further reinforcing the lack of blame and all-around anti-war feeling. Wow, thinking about it, I need to read this again, it was so good! |
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