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NEWS: Hiroshima Asked to Stop Using Barefoot Gen Manga in Schools

The petitioning group describes itself on its website as a new group, separate from the existing survivors' groups, that is starting "a movement towards building a true peace." The group posted a May 7 statement warning of the elevated risks that Japan faces from neighboring countries, and claims that "the 'Hiroshima Peace' movement and 'peace regime' that only advocate 'nuclear disarmament'" have done little to deter the "illegal acts" of other countries.

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The petitioning group describes itself on its website as a new group, separate from the existing survivors' groups, that is starting "a movement towards building a true peace." The group posted a May 7 statement warning of the elevated risks that Japan faces from neighboring countries, and claims that "the 'Hiroshima Peace' movement and 'peace regime' that only advocate 'nuclear disarmament'" have done little to deter the "illegal acts" of other countries.

So it's an ultra-nationalist group that wants Japan to pursue the bomb?

A group called "Atomic Bomb Survivors Seeking Peace and Security" petitioned the Hiroshima Board of Education on Friday to stop using Keiji Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen (Hadashi no Gen) manga in the city's peace studies program. The manga is Nakazawa's semi-autobiographical account of life during and after the 1945 Hiroshima bombing, based on his own real-life childhood experiences.

The group's petition asserted that the manga offers a "one-sided portrayal" and added that it is "important to choose materials that are neutral politically and ideologically" for the peace studies. The board said it accepted the petition from the group as "one point of view."

I'm seething with anger at this right now. As an American, deeply ashamed of what we did to Japan in WWII even though it occurred 5 or 6 decades before I was born, I felt that "Barefoot Gen" was a fair manga politically speaking. The reason I say that is that our government and military at that time were deeply flawed, only getting involved in the war because there was profit to be gained from it, and causing more bad than good. This manga is immensely effective when it comes to warning children against making rash actions, and how the most deceptively simple solutions can actually be the ones that do more harm than the harder ones. It's a snapshot of an era when America was still an arrogant, self-centered nation of capitalist hounds with no regard for human life outside of its home turf.

I'm seething with anger at this right now. As an American, deeply ashamed of what we did to Japan in WWII even though it occurred 5 or 6 decades before I was born, I felt that "Barefoot Gen" was a fair manga politically speaking. The reason I say that is that our government and military at that time were deeply flawed, only getting involved in the war because there was profit to be gained from it, and causing more bad than good

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I'm seething with anger at this right now. As an American, deeply ashamed of what we did to Japan in WWII even though it occurred 5 or 6 decades before I was born, I felt that "Barefoot Gen" was a fair manga politically speaking. The reason I say that is that our government and military at that time were deeply flawed, only getting involved in the war because there was profit to be gained from it, and causing more bad than good. This manga is immensely effective when it comes to warning children against making rash actions, and how the most deceptively simple solutions can actually be the ones that do more harm than the harder ones. It's a snapshot of an era when America was still an arrogant, self-centered nation of capitalist hounds with no regard for human life outside of its home turf.

You best be careful when generalizing in this fashion, especially when there is little but a few editorializing authors that actually support all the rash assumptions you are making here. This isn't a political forum, and this is no place for this kind of editorializing and trivialization of everything that was done and accomplished during that era in spite of all the bad. If you're going to use this forum as a soapbox to spit out one-sided propagandist revisionist editorials, especially those that are baseless and offer nothing in support, then I'm going to stop you right there.

Apollo-kun wrote:

I'm seething with anger at this right now. As an American, deeply ashamed of what we did to Japan in WWII even though it occurred 5 or 6 decades before I was born, I felt that "Barefoot Gen" was a fair manga politically speaking. The reason I say that is that our government and military at that time were deeply flawed, only getting involved in the war because there was profit to be gained from it, and causing more bad than good

Wait, what?

This doesn't make any sense. While certainly no side of any war is full of angels, I'm 100% certain that Japan attacked first.

So did you mistype or what?

Yes, but again, be careful. You're not the only fan of history here, and as a fan of history myself your facts are incredibly one-sided so far. Japan was not a saint by a long shot, and remember, they were also developing atomic weaponry. World War 2 was a very complex global conflict, and I can tell you with 150% certainty that there were no innocent entities in this war and, frankly, Japan was a pretty significant offender.