Barefoot Gen

GenUnlike the controversial Mein Kampf manga, this is the type of manga I would class as educational. It talks of real-life experiences and teaches us about the follies of nuclear weapons. The manga in question is Barefoot Gen and it revolves around the post-war experiences of writer, Keiji Nakazawa.

In this manga, Nakazawa describes the daily life of folk affected by the nuclear bombings (Hiroshima and Nagasaki). It describes scary instances like the side-effects, the hardships as well as touching moments like the people's perseverance to survive and make it through the tough times.

Barefoot Gen

By the way, if you are wondering about some of the more disturbing descriptions in this manga, keep in mind that Nakazawa is basing a lot of this on his own experiences.

Why is this manga in the news now? Well, a new English translation will be released in October and hence, the anticipation amongst manga fans. Some of these fans will point out that it had been translated a few years back by a group of volunteers called Project Gen. That's true but there seemed to be demands to retranslate the comic with a few alterations so as to suit readers from other countries.

Thereby, all this activity resulted in the new version. The changes are minor – for e.g. brushing up on the language – but there was one big alteration. This would be the decision to create a left-to-right reading order for the comic panels as opposed to the Japanese originals which have a right-to-left order.