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NEWS: Hiroshima Asked to Stop Using Barefoot Gen Manga in Schools

In my experience in college in Japan, I would say this is one of the top three topics never to talk about. The Japanese young people seemed to be totally oblivious to any atrocities that Japan had committee prior to that bombing. They also incorrectly assumed that I, as an American, approved of the bombings. And strangely, most of them had no idea Nagasaki was also bombed.

A group called "Atomic Bomb Survivors Seeking Peace and Security"
...
The petitioning group describes itself on its website as a new group, separate from the existing survivors' groups, that is starting "a movement towards building a true peace."
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posted a May 7 statement warning of the elevated risks that Japan faces from neighboring countries, and claims that "the 'Hiroshima Peace' movement and 'peace regime' that only advocate 'nuclear disarmament'" have done little to deter the "illegal acts" of other countries.

The board said it accepted the petition from the group as "one point of view."

At the age of 6, Nakazawa survived the Hiroshima bombing, but lost his entire family except for his mother.

I'm seething with anger at this right now. As an American, deeply ashamed of what we did to Japan in WWII even though it occurred 5 or 6 decades before I was born, I felt that "Barefoot Gen" was a fair manga politically speaking. The reason I say that is that our government and military at that time were deeply flawed, only getting involved in the war because there was profit to be gained from it, and causing more bad than good. This manga is immensely effective when it comes to warning children against making rash actions, and how the most deceptively simple solutions can actually be the ones that do more harm than the harder ones. It's a snapshot of an era when America was still an arrogant, self-centered nation of capitalist hounds with no regard for human life outside of its home turf.

HOWEVER I am well aware that there were many good men and women in the military at the time, and by no means am I including them in a blanket statement. I'm criticizing the leaders, the government, and companies profiting from human bloodshed, not the soldiers who risked their lives for what they thought was true and just.

Back on topic, I think that pulling this out of children's hands is a form of censorship. I believe I read a few volumes around the age of ten or eleven, and it changed my life and perspective on things. Every child should read it, in my opinion.

By the way, what is the other side not depicted by Barefoot Gen? The story concerns experiencing the Hiroshima A-bomb explosion. So, is the other side that that being in Hiroshima when the A-bomb was dropped was really fun?

People, can we please stop following up on Apollo-kun's rant?

I live in Malaysia and my home country was one of the areas of Japanese Occupation brutality. I can point out exact locations in my hometown where Japanese soldiers conducted their torture of anyone they deemed a war enemy.

As a citizen of a place that survived a short but intense and brutal occupation where the evils were only slightly lesser than that of Nazi Germany in that there was no systemic policy of genocide, I have no intention to forgive and no intention to forget. But I don't want to see these scars used as jockey material for some kind of history nerd fight.

I think that Apollo-kun is severely misguided and that there are limits to being an apologetic American, but to pursue this conversation will just dig up intensely deep wounds that run through Asia and the Commonwealth. How deep? How about decades of brutal conflict between Communist and Commonwealth / Western forces across Southeast Asia, with the Communists getting their foothold and their strength because it was supported by people who were hurt or needed protection during the Japanese Occupation?

I don't want to see a "You're wrong" "No you're wrong" forum fight involving history nerding when the scars of WW2 are still present in Asia.

Apollo-kun wrote:

I'm seething with anger at this right now. As an American, deeply ashamed of what we did to Japan in WWII even though it occurred 5 or 6 decades before I was born, I felt that "Barefoot Gen" was a fair manga politically speaking. The reason I say that is that our government and military at that time were deeply flawed, only getting involved in the war because there was profit to be gained from it, and causing more bad than good. This manga is immensely effective when it comes to warning children against making rash actions, and how the most deceptively simple solutions can actually be the ones that do more harm than the harder ones. It's a snapshot of an era when America was still an arrogant, self-centered nation of capitalist hounds with no regard for human life outside of its home turf. HOWEVER I am well aware that there were many good men and women in the military at the time, and by no means am I including them in a blanket statement. I'm criticizing the leaders, the government, and companies profiting from human bloodshed, not the soldiers who risked their lives for what they thought was true and just. Back on topic, I think that pulling this out of children's hands is a form of censorship. I believe I read a few volumes around the age of ten or eleven, and it changed my life and perspective on things. Every child should read it, in my opinion.

Huh? Don't get me wrong I don't think America was a saint during the war at all (the atomic bomb, the internment camps, knowledge of the concentration camps and not doing anything) but you really need to do some serious research on WWII if this what you think.

giao_su wrote:

By the way, what is the other side not depicted by Barefoot Gen? The story concerns experiencing the Hiroshima A-bomb explosion. So, is the other side that that being in Hiroshima when the A-bomb was dropped was really fun?

If that new group of survivors is ultra-nationalist as someone here says, then I think that they want story without leftist emphasis on the series. Because you could read Brefoot Gen that way, too.

Of course, people aren't going to read this, and instead are going to just read my original post... :S

Apollo-kun wrote:

Of course, people aren't going to read this, and instead are going to just read my original post... :S

Edit your original post.

You may not be able to clean up the rest of it, but if people continue after you edit, get moderators to step in and shut down the other comments.

It was my bad for starting it in the first place.

Imagine if we'd turned them over to the Russians in 1945