Hiroshima (25 page)

I went through the procedures for foreign travel—I got a passport and a visa—and landed at Naha Airport.
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Chain-link base fences stretched endlessly on both sides of the road, the whole way from the airport to Naha City, until I got to the hotel on International Road. The latest planes took off for Vietnam. Warships clogged the harbor. The route was a weapons expo. I'd seen the bases at Iwakuni near Hiroshima and Yokota near Tokyo and had imagined Okinawa would be like them, but I was astonished at the unimaginable size of the U.S. bases. It was as if the people of Okinawa lived on a mere spot of land among the bases.

At Kadena Air Base I got out my camera to take a picture of B-52s taking off, and a patrol car came rushing up, red light flashing and guards with carbines. It was further confirmation that Okinawa was really America. Their land having been stolen for use as bases, farmers tilled their fields and grew crops right up to the fences. Children learned at school amid the incredibly loud noise. Racial fights took place between blacks and whites on the streets of Koza. Squat munitions storehouses contained nuclear weapons. Okinawa had been turned into a battlefield. It might explode at the slightest touch and Okinawa itself vaporized instantly. I trembled at the thought.

Walking the battlefield of southern Okinawa, where artillery shells had poured down like iron rain, I peered into a foxhole in the field. I was overcome, thinking, “They crouched in so small a hole to keep from getting torn apart in the violent bombardment?” Fear oppressed me. As I imagined the wretched people fleeing across the battlefield, these images superimposed themselves on the images of me fleeing atomic hell, and I had trouble breathing. As I walked about Okinawa, the only battleground in the Pacific War in which land fighting involved Japanese civilians, the cruelty of war, war's screams enveloped me. I returned to Tokyo in a very dark mood. I realized the issues involving Okinawa were too large for a single manga
artist to treat.

My editor asked me, “How's the Okinawa work coming?” At the point of tears, I replied, “Let me off, please. Okinawa's utterly impossible to draw. You even advanced me money for materials, so I apologize.” In fact, I did suffer greatly trying to make a manga about Okinawa. With the persuasion and advice of my editor, I tried again to draw Okinawa. All I could do was draw honestly what I'd actually seen, so I made it a report on Okinawa, entitled “Okinawa,” and published it in
Boys' Jump
. Mail poured in from readers. Once again I realized the power of the “lowbrow weeklies.” Many letters were filled with prejudice and naive Japanese thinking about war: “The Okinawans speak Japanese? I thought they spoke only English,” and the like.

I understood clearly just how biased many Japanese were about Okinawa. They forgot that during the war it was damaged so thoroughly and that after the war it was occupied by the U.S. army and was cast off from Japan proper. Given that many Japanese didn't even know the facts of the atomic bombing of Japan, that wasn't surprising. A cocky letter came from a young Self-Defense Forces man: “Okinawa is forever crucial as an important base for the defense of Japan proper, so even after reversion, we'll keep the current bases; we'll take over and defend Japan. It's not something for manga artists like you to get worried about. Don't complain about Okinawa.” I got angry. I got savage: “If we leave it up to young Self-Defense Force members like you who don't know the reality of war, there's no telling what will happen!”

Usually I'm astonished when I see Self-Defense Forces people. Seeing them, fodder for American and Japanese merchants of death profiting from the manufacture of weapons, I want to thunder, “Don't waste the taxpayers' money!” If you want to defend the country, then reforest barren lands and turn them green; clean up polluted rivers and bring the fish back. That would be a true Self-Defense Force. The only way to defend Japan is peaceful diplomacy, talking with all countries. I was there when the atomic bomb fell, and I knew more than I ever wanted to know about the reality of the atomic bomb. I'm convinced the Self-Defense Forces serve no purpose and aren't needed.

Another thing about Okinawa angered me. I'd thought that Okinawa was
occupied
by the United States after Japan's defeat, but I read an article that according to U.S. documents, in negotiating the terms of defeat and seeking clemency for himself, the emperor had said it was okay to
hand over
Okinawa to the United States. My blood boiled all over again. “Dumb emperor! How could you say that about Okinawa so nonchalantly?” I was astonished. Under the banner of “for the emperor,” how many Okinawans died senseless deaths? How many Okinawan young people and residents had pledged loyalty to the emperor—“Long live the emperor!”—and died? I'd collected data on the subject, so I knew the nauseatingly cruel conduct carried out in the name of the emperor. I wanted to grab the emperor by the collar, throw him into a foxhole on the battlefields of southern Okinawa, and show him the suffering of those who died.

Turning Okinawa into
Okinawa
was hard work, and I suffered doing it, but I was grateful to editor N. for having had me draw Okinawa. Afterward my editor encouraged me to do a serial of
Suddenly One Day
, and I composed a story of a second-generation bomb victim, titled
Something's Up
, eighty pages long. The reaction was enormous. More than half of all the letter writers said they hadn't known the true facts about the atomic bomb. And they encouraged me to teach them more of the truth, of what really happened. Then I published a single-issue sixty pager,
Song of the Red Dragonfly
, about an old man whom the atomic bomb left without relatives.

As I continued to draw the atomic bomb, I grew depressed and bitter, so for a while I tried a change of pace, abandoning the topic of the atomic bomb and drawing lighthearted stories. But after a while, my anger and my grudge against war and the atomic bomb bubbled up again, and I realized, “You still haven't exhausted your hatred of the atomic bomb!” In September 1971 I was asked to do a yearlong serial for the Sunday edition of
Red Flag
, and I published
Song of the Clang-Clang Trolley
.
[14]
It depicted relations between a bomb victim trolley man and a second-generation bomb victim. It got very good reviews. They told me it got more response than any manga serial the party organ had ever published, and they asked me to keep the serial going. Though I was delighted, I was exhausted from thinking only about the atomic bomb for a year. So I declined and told them I wanted to end it, as per contract, at one year.

I heard from
Boys' Jump
editor N., who'd read the Sunday serial: “If you can compose for other papers, compose for
Jump
!” I owed him, so I could only agree. Editor N. said, “There are a great many editors in the publishing world, but I'm the only one who really understands you.” I was grateful to editor N. himself for having advised me how to create this new manga field. I was filled with gratitude that I'd been blessed with a really good editor. Anger toward the atomic bomb bubbled up again, and running headfirst into my anger—“Damn! Damn!”—I continued to draw the atomic bomb theme:
Our Eternity
,
Song of Departure
,
Song of the Wooden Clappers
,
One Good Pitch
.

August 6, 1971. The memorial ceremony for the atomic bomb. Emperor and empress bowed at the cenotaph and visited bomb victims
at a facility for bomb victims. An article reported what he said to them: “He was utterly sympathetic and hoped that world peace would continue. Learning that many citizens are still receiving treatment went to his heart. In the future, he hopes that you will have cheerful feelings for one another, continue your treatment, and quickly regain your health.” I read it in Tokyo and boiled over: “What gall! How can bomb victims have cheerful feelings? Atomic bomb sickness has no medical solution. If there were an easy solution, why would they suffer? This suffering happened on your watch, didn't it?” I trembled with rage: “By attending the Hiroshima ceremony, you want to relegate the atomic bomb to the past and buy a get-out-of-jail-free card for your war guilt. But I won't let you!” I was so angry at those minor functionaries who'd picked well-behaved bomb victims to sit there in the emperor's presence and who carried out the ceremony, I could have puked.

October 1972.
Boys' Jump Monthly
decided to have each manga artist draw his autobiography, and I was urged to be leadoff batter and do the first issue. I was flustered. I declined: “Draw my autobiography? How embarrassing! Impossible!” The editor kept at me, arguing that I should set my life down in manga form. I thought it over and published in
Boys' Jump Monthly
a single-issue, forty-five page autobiography,
I Was There
. The reviews were good, but for me it was sheer embarrassment. A letter contained this reader's apology to me: “Nakazawa was always doing atomic bomb manga, so I thought he was a hateful manga man always advertising himself and profiting off the atomic bomb, but reading
I Was There
and realizing he had experienced the atomic bomb and was drawing the truth, I felt sorry I'd doubted him.” My own feelings were complicated and dark.

Editor N. read my autobiography and said, “In forty-five-pages, single-issue format, you depicted only a fraction of what you really have to say. You still have much more to say. Please use this autobiography as draft and do a long serial for
Boys' Jump
!” He encouraged me: you choose the serial length you want; I'll guarantee you'll get the page count you want. I could only agree. I was full of gratitude to editor N., who had given me a place to publish earlier. Moved, I started in on a long serial on my autobiography. Up till then, I'd published many atomic bomb
manga, but I'd always wanted to stress the prewar years, something that had been impossible because of page count.

How do wars begin? Who plans wars? I'd long thought it wasn't possible to talk of war and atomic bombs without depicting the process whereby free speech and action and thought were stolen away under emperor-system fascism and Japan plunged into aggressive war. So my thoughts ballooned: I wanted to depict in depth Japan's dark politics of terror, including Dad's horrible experience of being arrested by the Thought Police, as well. My feelings ripened, too. I asked for my wife's cooperation: “This next serial I'm really going to do it, so there'll be hateful letters and phone calls, and bad guys may come calling, so be careful. If they want a fight, I'll fight them to the finish.” I too firmed up my resolve and set to work.

The Birth of
Barefoot Gen

June 1973. Using my own life and introducing as protagonist my alter ego, “Gen,” I began to draw
Barefoot Gen.
I portrayed my family as it actually was; I made “Gen” roam the atomic wasteland barefoot. I called the protagonist “Gen” in the sense of the basic composition of humanity so that he'd be someone who wouldn't let war and an atomic bomb happen again.
[15]
I began the serial in the pages of
Boys' Jump
. In drawing
Gen
, I went back to prewar and wartime Hiroshima. One after the other, scenes came floating up: the streets of Hiroshima on which I'd wandered, starving; our neighborhood; the guys I'd fought with. In the manuscript I ran about, all over Hiroshima. And I raised my voice to sing Mom's favorite tune, “Life is short.”

Boy's Magazine
and
Boys' Sunday
were the founding fathers of manga weeklies and boasted of their circulation. But in the blink of an eye
Boys' Jump
overtook them and overwhelmed them, selling consistently one million, then two million copies. This circulation even became a source of public concern. I was absolutely delighted that
Jump
sold. My work caught the eye of many readers, and it was good for them to encounter the reality of war and the atomic bomb.
Barefoot Gen
was heavy subject matter, and I knew perfectly well it wouldn't become a big popular hit. But steadily, if rather inconspicuously,
Gen
attracted fans.

I got letters. From adults—“I remember the suffering of war and don't want there to be another war.” From grade school pupils—“I pity Gen, who was starved for food, so I'd like to give him my food.” People thanked me for
Gen
—“You've rendered the wartime give-and-take between parent and child smoothly.” Editor N.'s second-in-command told me, “When I take
Jump
home with me, my mother reads only
Gen
.” A young editor assigned to me just out of college had thought little of being assigned
Gen
—war was no concern of his. But as the book's installments advanced, he realized that war destroyed all that is human, and he wept over Japan as it tumbled down the slope to defeat. In a state of high excitement, I drew the panels that told
Gen
's story.

One time, I was with other manga artists; they formed a group. One of them, A., said to me, “Enough with the atomic bomb manga!” He said, “They're too cruel, too shocking, for children! They're not good for them!” He said, “Manga
have to give children dreams!” A. had received publisher S.'s prize for children's manga and said proudly that his own manga, which featured pigs flying through the air, were good manga. I was aghast and nearly puked: how can I associate with these worthless people?