It's rare for me to cry, feel heartbreak or to feel genuine emotion toward an anime film let alone find a dram in the anime category. This film is one of the best but unfortunately forgotten anime gems, but truest me once you see the film you'll never forget it.One of the things I love about this film is it's documentary style, the cinematography and presentation. even though some aspects of the animation mainly in some gestures of the human characters seem a little dated it doesn't delude anything and after a while you do get use to it. But beside that the animation style I feel is great, from the way the humans are animated but most of all it's the backgrounds. The Detals of the buildings, vehicles, you name it it's there.I'll admit something to you this film has one of the most horrifying, upsetting and unnerving scenes I've ever see in animation, when we see in graphic detail the bombing and all of the people it is destroying in it's wake. As well as the aftermath it left from people that are burned badly with flesh hanging in places looking like zombies (that wasn't a joke, it's a true fact) walking dying a slow death to the charred burned ruins of a city that was once flourishing and beautiful.The facts of the history presented in the narration also make the emotional weight heavier and made me feel sicker because it's true. As my dad said more stupid things happen in war than smart things, when someone tells someone to go one way, even though logically they should go another.The music is also good it has an end theme song that is one of the most beautiful if saddest songs I've ever heard. Other than that the true strength of the film is in it's character drama. Gen and his family are people that I can actually love, may'be due to the sense of familiarity they carry. Gen is a character that actually reminds me a little of myself when I was his age, whom was mischievous, borderline selfless and selfish, in his spirits, funny, and slightly mature for his age. The life style, activities they all do that basically is what the first 30 mins are composed of just regular things you would do and say in any peaceful neighborhood you live in. It was when it was all taken away and part of Gen's family died I appreciated those things as well as the same things I have a lot more because once their gone their gone forever.We see Gen just struggling to keep his family composed of his mom and baby. Even though he may seem like his usual self, when things get hard we do see some emotional cracks from some of the powerlessness he suffers due to the bleak non fruitful conditions as well as dealing with the recent loss of his family.However the film isn't all dark, things do get better due to Gen's unbreakable sense of hope. It's like with Andy from "The Shawshand Redemptions" it was the one thing that was keeping him, his family , and the people he's helped along the way alive, without it I doubt they would of made it. But despite all that there was one scene near the end that is one of the most heartbreaking scenes ever which broke my heart into a million pieces and made me cry.Gen, his family and everyone else in that tragedy will live in my heart forever. Life always goes on even in the darkness of tragedy.Rating: 4 stars

Sequels are always billed to be inferior to their predecessors and animé is no different - animé can potentially knock out endless sequels each one worse than the next, because of this my expectations were that this film was only going to be a shadow compared to the excellence of its prequel. I believed that once the bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima not a great deal could happen in this film, thankfully I was wrong. Barefoot Gen was centred around the suffering caused by the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and the immediate after affects caused by the disease caused by the nuclear fallout (Pika), that was emotionally ravaging enough, but this sequel builds further upon the effects of the bomb drop, its expands its critical claw further to how people are affected in the long term. Issues such as: the brutality, bullying and negligence of occupying forces; the long term affects and the slow death that Pika brings; children being orphaned and hated by the community for the deaths of their parents. All are done well and it could be argued to be one of the great contemporary anti-war films - along with grave of the fireflies. These films, whether left as Sequel and Original or if they are converged into a singular entity they are both incredibly emotionally harrowing as was intended when Keiji Nakazawa wrote that Manga which this was adapted from. Regardless of the strength of the sequel, the original is probably more horrifying and emotionally crippling, one scene in particular is the moment when Gen goes back to his house to see his younger brother, whom the director and indeed writer (Nakazawa) has masterfully created a beautiful relationship between the two, is trapped inside the house, not yet dead but in his last moment, that scene is amongst the most beautiful and heart wrenching I have ever seen in my 22 years that I've been around for. It's also amazing how a film which evokes sadness through the characters on screen merely crying can be so upsetting, again I can't emphasise the excellence of both the story and the direction (in this sense). I'll make no bones of it, this film is grim; the story is a thing that I could never forgot due to the horrifying nature of the power that the American military holds and the horrific nature of the very event the film is depicting in itself. Yet the beauty of this film is that it shows people in the most extreme conditions not being beaten down by their conditions, it shows the power of human nature: their city has been all but turned to dust, the survivors were beyond lucky to survive but regardless of that they are slowly being picked off by 'Pika' but the protagonists are always laughing and smiling, trying not to let their circumstances get the better of them, which by and large throughout the film excluding the more emotional parts of the film(s). To summarise, this easily, in my opinion at the very least, goes down in history when you coalesce parts one and two together as one of the best war, and anti-war films – or dare I say propaganda films- ever made. A must see animated classic that deserves place in all DVD collections.

Seeing this one at 7 was something to remember. The picture, the sound, the message, the dialogues, the actions. The atomic bombing looked so frightening on a big screen: the people were burning, their flesh – melting, and finally only bones remained.Some Russian people still recall memories of this cartoon, though, it still has not been officially released in good quality. It must mean something. The animation film was shown decades ago in our theatres and since then has been erased from any means of media - but we still remember it and respect it. "Finding Nemo" is good. "Spirited Away" is better. But this one is a masterpiece that has real history as a background.Judging by the number of votes, not so many IMDb visitors are aware of this gem. Alas, before making atomic quarrels one should watch this film. You cannot watch it and pass by ignorant.My mark is a definite 10. Thank you for attention.

You'll be surprised, this is testimony to the power of 'old style' animation, you need more than Computer Generated images to make a great film. Even with it's basic arrangements barefoot gen managed to shock me by its ability to capture all the horror, confusion and devastation delivered by the atomic bomb.I found this movie informative but disturbing. I have heard it being described as a tragicomedy. I think this is a fitting description but just be prepared because it really does make giant leaps from the genuinely tragic and sad to light heartedness. You won't know whether to laugh or cry. Actually, you will. A little cry would be totally justified so have a hanky at the ready and don't watch it with your mates from down the pub.