is a Japanese historical manga series by Keiji Nakazawa. Loosely based on Nakazawa's own experiences as a Hiroshima survivor, the series begins in 1945 in and around Hiroshima, Japan, where the six-year-old boy Gen Nakaoka lives with his family. After Hiroshima is destroyed by atomic bombing, Gen and other survivors are left to deal with the aftermath. It ran in several magazines, including Weekly Shōnen Jump, from 1973 to 1987. It was subsequently adapted into three live action film adaptations directed by Tengo Yamada, which were released between 1976 and 1980. Madhouse released two anime films, one in 1983 and one in 1986. In 2007, a live action television drama series adaptation aired in Japan on Fuji TV over two nights, August 10 and 11. Publication history Cartoonist Keiji Nakazawa created the feature Ore wa Mita (translated into English as I Saw It), an eyewitness account of the atomic-bomb devastation in Japan, in the monthly manga Monthly Shōnen Jump in 1972. In the United States it was published through Educomics in 1982. Nakazawa went on to serialize the longer, autobiographical Hadashi No Gen (Barefoot Gen) beginning in the June 4, 1973 edition of Weekly Shōnen Jump manga magazine, It was cancelled after a year and a half, and moved to three other less widely distributed magazines: Shimin (Citizen), Bunka Hyōron (Cultural Criticism), and Kyōiku Hyōron (Educational Criticism). It was published in book collections in Japan beginning in 1975. Plot Volume 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima The story begins in Hiroshima in April 1945, during the final months of World War II. Six-year-old Gen Nakaoka and his family live in poverty and struggle to make ends meet. Gen's father Daikichi urges them to "live like wheat", which always grows strong despite being trod on. Daikichi is critical of the war. When he shows up drunk to a mandatory combat drill and talks back to his instructor, the Nakaokas are branded as traitors and become subject to harassment and discrimination by their neighbors. To restore his family's honor, Gen's older brother Koji joins the Imperial Navy against Daikichi's wishes, where he is subjected to a brutal training regimen by his commanding officer, which causes one of Koji's friends to kill himself. On August 6, the atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. Gen's father and siblings perish in the fires, but he and his mother escape. The shock causes her to give