Hadashi no Gen is just the most heart-breaking, sad, gritty and tragic story that I can think of. It is the kind of story that really changes you as a person. It makes you see the world differently.

Hadashi no Gen is the tragic story of Gen and his family, who suffered deeply the effect of the atomic bomb. The author lived in Hiroshima in 1945 and he was six years old, so this is not fiction. This story is not fruit of imagination nor speculation. It is a true narrative of the Hiroshima bombing and the tragedies it caused to hundreds of thousands of people. Hadashi no Gen is terror and despair, but it is also redemption and hope. This work is a must-read for everyone. Humans need to learn from their mistakes, and reading Hadashi no Gen is one way to do it.

Almost everything is outstanding in this manga: the story, the art and the quality of the characters. Because of the tragedy involving the story, some of the moments are really not enjoyable to read. But a while after you finish it you can enjoy the story, if you are able to accept the fate of some characters. In the end, one cannot turn his/her back to the truth. Although the names of most people were changed to the story, all of them were based on real people that lived with Nakazawa Keiji. The tragedies depicted really happened.

One can say Hadashi no Gen is an anti-war work, but it's actually more than that. It also criticizes the abusive Japanese society. This work also deglamorizes the traditional Japanese society, pointing out the injustices that existed during that time. Sometimes in Hadashi no Gen the real enemy was not the bomb or the Amrericans who dropped it, but the very Japanese people.

I still haven't read the entire story, but there's a reason for that. I was simply unable to find scans on the Internet (maybe I'm not good at finding things). The 10 volumes were published in my country (Brazil) but it was a limited edition. I was only able to read until Volume 6 (which was enough to make me love it). Very recently, I was able to purchase the remaining four volumes, and I intend to read them very soon.