Line #23 NightmareFuel/BarefootGen


1	%%
2	%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=17086421840.85976600
3	%% Previous thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1500520441026030700
4	%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
5	%%
6	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2024_02_22_at_50920_pm.png]]
7	[[caption-width-right:350:She was one of the lucky ones.]]
8	%%
9	%% Caption selected per above IP thread. Please do not replace or remove without discussion in the Caption Repair thread:
10	%% https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1404492079030138900
11	%%
12
13	->''"I hope that children seeing the animated version would be traumatized and learn to despise the Atom Bomb."''
14	-->-- '''Keiji Nakazawa''' on the anime version scarring children in classrooms
15
16	* '''[[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.
17	** 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 smitten by God Himself. And that's only the beginning.
18	* 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). [[BodyHorror The skin burning off]] and [[EyeScream 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.
19	* [[ParanoiaFuel The idea that your whole life could be turned upside-down and darn near everything you know destroyed in seconds]]...all because of some enemy nation's AppliedPhlebotinum.
20	** The simple fact that this [[RealLife actually happened]]. And that someone survived the horror. To look upon most of them--and in retrospect, even Gen--maybe it would have been more merciful for them to have died right then and there.
21	* 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 war prisoners to keep them from being bombed and Gen fought ''tooth and nail'' with his siblings over vegetables.
22	* Gen's sister being brutally harassed and humiliated in front of her class by her ''teacher'' for being a member of a family that opposed the war.
23	* Gen's brother Koji nearly getting stabbed by a drunken airman. And the airman in question is a ''kamikaze pilot'' who already knows that he's going to die and is scared to death about it; being drunk is the only way that he can cope.
24	* 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 '''''HORRIFYING''''' picture of three out of five members of Gen's family ''burning alive right in front of Gen and his mother.''
25	** 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 [[ThousandYardStare 100 mile stare]] the earliest stages of PTSD?
26	* More psychological than physical, but the ostracism and harassment that Gen's family suffers in the manga as a result of his father finally openly saying what he thinks about the war to block chairman Samejima and the whole neighborhood during spear drill (remember, this is in April 1945 meaning he's kept it bottled in throughout the war) can be uncomfortable reading in certain parts, like when Daikichi is arrested by the police, taken away and tortured.
27	* The suspense that begins once Gen's hair starts falling out after the bomb detonates. Most likely, this was caused in strong part by atomic radiation in the area (although other factors, such as immense stress, could have arguably played a role). What other effects, both short-term and long-term, will Gen suffer from thanks to his exposure to radiation? Reading the story for the first time, one would half-expect it to end with a young boy dying a slow and painful death.
28	** The poor kid is so scared out of his mind that he begins singing old folk songs out loud to keep his spirits up between ''screaming'' for mercy. Imagine going through a DespairEventHorizon when you are ''six years old.''
29	* Gen tries to take shelter from the heat in a streetcar that was blown halfway across the neighborhood by the blast. His mind is instantly changed after finding it filled with melted corpses and lined with ''carpets of MAGGOTS.''
30	* 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: [[ImAHumanitarian a severed fingertip]]. And then he cries at Gen for taking his food away...
31	* 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 the "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.
32
33

Context NightmareFuel / BarefootGen