AllMovie

Based on the acclaimed graphic novel by artist Keiji Nakazawa, Barefoot Gen is an animated drama about a family's struggle to survive in Japan during the waning days of World War II. The family's patriarch has run afoul of the local government due to his opposition to the war. The government begins to deprive the family of life's little luxuries, and its necessities. The hardships they suffer through are put into perspective by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by Allied forces. The family's six-year-old son, Gen, who has lived with the reality of the war nearly his entire life, provides the center of this animated drama.