Critical Thinking Journal 4

Name_____Natalia Wingo______________ Time of day your class meets:5:30-6:50________

1. Who is the Author or artist or musician of the original work and what influenced them to write what they did?

The author of this piece is Keiji Nakazawa. He is a Japanese artist who survived the Hiroshima bombing. He was influenced to write Barefoot Gen after his own life after the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Though this story is fictionalised, he did write a story for Shonen Jump (a popular manga magazine) titled Ore Wa Mita (or I Saw It) before this one.

2. What is the full Title of the piece? What is the meaning of this title?

The full title of this piece is Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen in English). Gen’s name has multiple meanings in Japanese, as Japanese names often do. Gen’s name means “root” or “origin” of something. But it also means “elemental” and a “source” of happiness and vitality. And Gen is barefoot because Nakazawa-san envisioned Gen to be “barefoot, standing firmly atop the burnt-out rubble of Hiroshima, raising his voice against war and nuclear weapons.” (Nakazawa 687).

3. What was the Historical context within which the work was produced? How does the context affect the meaning and interpretation of the piece?

World War II. I feel like I don’t need to say much more, but I will because I have to. The piece takes place on August 6th of 1945 during the Hiroshima bombing, of which Nakazawa-san lived through when he was just a young child. About six years old to be exact.

4. Who do you think the intended audience or audiences might have been at the time the work was created? How does the audience affect the meaning and interpretation of the piece?

I feel like the intended audience is supposed to be young Japanese people as a kind of educational tool. Like saying, this happened, here’s someone’s account of the devastation. But the audience could be any young person, to be honest. Because everyone learns about World War II, I feel like this could be used to say that Hiroshima was forever marred because of this bomb. I mean, people that are about my age and younger now live in a time that is very far from World War II, we can’t just look back in our own memories and say exactly what happened, we learn what happened from secondary sources like teachers and grandparents and other things like Barefoot Gen. Our minds are swayed to feel a certain way by what we read and hear, and I’m not sure about other people, but my mind was swayed away from the stupid things America did and toward the people and countries we affected.

5. What do you think the work’s main argument, point, or conclusion might be? How would you analyze the “argument”? How would you compare this specifically to other artistic works you have seen both in class or outside of class? What is your personal response to the work?

Based on what I read, I think the work’s main argument is that of hatred and anger against America and the Japanese military. As the quote says, “I vowed that I would never forgive the Japanese militarists who started the war, nor the Americans who had so casually dropped the bomb on us.” (Nakazawa 687) This just proves that he had some very strong feelings over what happened, and with good reason! He lost most of his family in this bombing, so he has very good reason to be angry and bitter over this.

Honestly, when I first learned that I would be reading something based off of Japan in WWII, my mind went straight to Grave of the Fireflies. I mean, they’re both based in Japan during WWII and the both follow a young kid. Also, they’re both sad and made me cry. My next thought was, hella yes, I get to read manga for homework! I love manga and anime, this is so great! As for my personal response, well… Let’s just say it definitely reinforced my feelings on WWII in Japan. I mean, ma’am you read what I had to say about the whole thing in my writing for the Grave of the Fireflies review. And I’m pretty sure another rant won’t be good. We both know my stance on the matter, but I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed Barefoot Gen. I actually found this quote that I just love, “Thanks to bigotry, religious fanaticism, and the greed of those who traffic in war, the Earth is never at peace, and the specter of nuclear war is never far away.” (Nakazawa 687) I hate war, I always have, if there was some way for war to just stop I would be very happy, and this quote tells me that I’m not the only one who thinks this way. War is scary, and there is always a war going on, and I hate that. But I can’t stop it, I’m one person, but if, say, whole countries or civilizations stood up in some way we might be able to stop it. As the quote from A Bug’s Life says, “You let one ant stand up to us, then they all might stand up!” (Hopper A Bug’s Life). Ha ha, sorry I had to throw that in. :D

Work Cited

Barefoot Gen. Keiji Nakazawa. Pages 686-732.

A Bug’s Life. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120623/quotes.

Reflection

Aha, yes, I got to read a manga for class! Being as I am a definite otaku (anime fan) I quite enjoyed reading through this manga. It was very classic manga, with older illustration, but very graphic images, which is an element often found in most mangas. But the fact that this work also had to do with the movie I watched for the Foreign Film Critique, kind of just enforced my stance on WWII. But I really did enjoy the work, and I'm going to be looking into the mangaka's (the writer/artist) other works.

#humanities #Fall2015