Barefoot Gen, Vol. 10: Never Give Up

Hiroshima-shi, Japan, 1953. Over seven years have passed since the pikadon, the atomic blast that destroyed the city and the lives of its citizens. Gen Nakaoka, orphan and aspiring artist, attends his middle-school graduation ceremony to spread an unabashed message of peace. On his way home from the ceremony, he has a brief encounter with the most beautiful girl he has ever laid eyes on: Mitsuko. Determined to find his one true love again, Gen sets out on a desperate search for the girl, only to discover that she is the daughter of his abusive, warmongering boss at the signboard business, who is determined that the two never be together. Meanwhile, Gen’s friends and roommates, Ryuta, Musubi, and Katsuko, are making a small fortune off of their dressmaking enterprise. But a pair of sinister yakuza ensnare Musubi in their drug scheme, and the young man suddenly finds himself an unwitting slave to chemicals, throwing all of his money at the dealers just to keep away the pain of withdrawal. Gen and his friends know something is very wrong with their friend, but they will have to intervene soon, as Musubi’s situation becomes increasingly desperate…

This is the final volume of the Barefoot Gen saga, hibakusha Keiji Nakazawa’s semi-autobiographical magnum opus, and the first manga to be translated into English. From 1976 until 2009, Project Gen, a group of volunteer translators and peace activists from Japan, worked to translate Hadashi no Gen into English (as well as Russian) to spread Nakazawa’s message of peace beyond the shores of his homeland. Today, Project Gen continues to promote the proliferation of Barefoot Gen in the hopes that no one should have to endure the horrors of war—whether directly or indirectly, as soldier or civilian—ever again.