Japanese comic book on nuclear victim published here

The recently published Japanese comic book titled "Barefooted Ken" is an autobiography of Keiji Nakazawa, 62, which describes his experience of suffering atomic bombing when he was first-grade boy of the elementary school. Since the Barefooted Ken was introduced in the comic mazine, "Jump," the comics were published in an independent volume of 10 books and more than 10 million books have been sold so far.

During the atomic bombing, the hero of the book, Ken, was safe, as he was then just

beside the wall. But a woman, who was holding conversation with him at that time, was killed instantly with her body melted by the radiation. When he returned home, he witnessed that his father, elder sister and elder brother were crashed under the burning buildings but he was obliged to run away from the scene of fire. He had to go around through the ghost-like survivors in order to feed his mother and younger sister, who narrowly escaped the death,

The comics do not end up with the protestation that Japan is the merely victim of nuclear bombing.

A few months before the atomic bombing, Ken's father was branded as anti-patriotic man for his anti-war remarks that the bona-fide people were suffering from disasters, because of the show of war masterminded by the Japanese military imperialists. Ken's family members were suffering pains due to villagers' ostracism. Having felt humiliation from this, Ken's brother entered military but he came to repent over his admission into the military, witnessing absurd situations that young people were herded into the so-called "Kamikaze" commando under the pretext for the sake of the Japanese Empire. While the Ken family members were alienated by the neighbors, there was only a man, a Korean, a certain Park who gave a helping hand to them. This time, the first and second books were issued, out of the total 10. The writer said in them that he wanted to show an undaunted "courage" under whatever circumstances.