History NightmareFuel / BarefootGen

* '''''[[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki The atomic bombing scene]]''''', of course. It's the film's SignatureScene for a reason, as it doesn't play in the slightest with how absolutely terrifying the bomb and its effects were. People are melted where they stand, riddled with shrapnel, impaled by debris, crushed underneath their own houses...pretty much any CruelAndUnusualDeath you can think of was experienced by ''someone'' in Hiroshima that day.

* '''''The nuking scene.''''' Dear ''god'', the nuking scene. It's the film's SignatureScene for a reason, as it doesn't play in the slightest with how absolutely terrifying the bomb and its effects were. People are melted where they stand, riddled with shrapnel, impaled by debris, crushed underneath their own houses...pretty much any CruelAndUnusualDeath you can think of was experienced by ''someone'' in Hiroshima that day.

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[[quoteright:141:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/barefootgensee.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:141: It only gets worse.]]

** The scene right before the bomb initially drops is scary in a different way: Gen is talking to a classmate when they both notice a lone plane in the otherwise-clear sky, and stare at it in confusion. That plane is, of course, the ''Enola Gay'', and after a brief exchange between the pilot and his mission control, the plane drops its package. The bomb slowly and silently floats down on a parachute, until, after what feels like forever...[[NothingIsTheSameAnymore it detonates]], [[LightIsNotGood bathing Hiroshima in light]] as if the poor town is being smited by God himself. And that's only the beginning.

* '''''The nuking scene.''''' Dear ''god'', the nuking scene. It's the film's SignatureScene for a reason, as it doesn't play in the slightest with how absolutely terrifying the bomb and its effects were. People are melted where they stand, riddled with shrapnel, impaled by debris, crushed underneath their own houses...pretty much any CruelAndUnusualDeath you can think of was experienced by at least ''someone'' in Hiroshima that day.

* In the early pages of the manga, before the bombing, Gen and his little brother are attacked by bullies. They fight the bullies off by biting one of the bullies' fingers off, complete with the bullies' screaming about their bones poking through the finger ends. But the true nightmare happens as Gen is picking up their scattered belongings and notices his brother is munching on something: a severed fingertip. And then he cries at Gen for taking his food away...

* Also in the manga, the brutal training of Japanese soldiers and air force recruits is shown in horrific detail: an entire group of recruits is punished with brutal beatings for "misdeeds" of one (one "misdeed" was the exhausted recruit falling behind in drill). This ends with the recruit killing himself in the barracks, the others discovering his body hanging from the rafters.

* In the early pages of the manga, before the bombing, Gen and his little brother are attacked by bullies. They fight the bullies off by ''biting one of the bullies' fingers off, complete with cries of how the bones are showing through the finger ends. But the true nightmare happens as Gen is picking up their scattered belongings and notices his brother is munching on something: a severed fingertip. And then he cries at Gen for taking his food away...

* Gen's brother Koji nearly getting stabbed by a drunken airman. And the airman in question is a ''kamikaze pilot'' who knows that he's already going to die and is scared to death about it; being drunk is the only way that he can cope.

* Gen's father nearly getting stabbed by a drunken soldier.

* Even before the bomb dropped, conditions were brutal. Rice was so scarce that you could literally ''count'' the number of grains, citizens were made to stomp and insult sidewalk drawings of Roosevelt and Churchill just to prove they were still loyal, citizens painted the letter "P" on their roofs like American POWs to keep them from being bombed and Gen fought ''tooth and nail'' with his siblings over vegetables.

* An even scarier one, since its more personal. Gen sees his father, younger brother and older sister trapped underneath the rubble of their home- then he hears them '''''scream in agony''''' as the flames grow closer, his father encouraging his increasingly desperate mother to ''leave them to die.'' As if things weren't bad enough, we're treated to a '''''[[SarcasmMode LOVELY]]''''' picture of three out of five members of Gen's family ''burning alive right in front of Gen and his mother.''

** In addition to that, although it is mercifully brief, Gen's mother Kimie's expression during her momentary insanity is downright ''terrifying''. This, along with her MadnessMantra and insane laughter, underscore how utterly alone Gen is at that moment, with his mother incapable of taking care of herself, let alone of Gen, and with the flames closing in on them. Is Her 100 mile stare the earliest stages of PTSD?

* Well, the whole film, as it ''is'' meant to show that WarIsHell, after all. But especially the living "zombies", and the fact that they were ''not'' zombies, but people who were badly injured (and most likely disoriented). The skin burning off and eyes melting out of sockets is BEYOND horrifying. Other disturbing details include corpses bloating up in the hot sun and sometimes rupturing, as well as the guy who shambles about dragging his intestines behind him. In real life, they were called "Ant-Walking Alligator people" because of their disfigurements.