Hiroshima

@M

Vanessa's Drinking Buddy,
20 Year Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2003
Posts
7,174
I bought the first two volumes of Barefoot Gen. About halfway through the first book.
I started reading it last night too. The most disturbing part to me, so far, was not the actual comic, but, the author's introduction, telling how his sister was instantly killed in their house's collapse, and his brother and father trapped, but still alive in the rubble...and then the house caught fire. His Mother wasn't strong enough to free them, and nobody passing by that she begged for help would do so. It's horrible beyond imagining to even think of being in her situation, your husband and son trapped, crying for help, as they're being burnt alive, and not being able to free them or get aid.
 

DevilRedeemed

teh
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Nov 5, 2002
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13,554
I really liked barefoot gen, as harrowing as it is, it's quite beautiful somehow, maybe though it's rawness
 

@M

Vanessa's Drinking Buddy,
20 Year Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2003
Posts
7,174
To digress for a moment: What's up with the Japanese biting off fingers? Some kind of cultural thing? Gen and his brother both do it, first to the magistrate's son, then, the magistrate himself. Reading Hulk Hogan's biography, when he first started wrestling in Japan, a Japanese wrestler tried to bite his fingers off too. At first, he thought it was accidental, but, it kept happening, and he realized that's what the guy was seriously attempting. Is that an extension of the Yakuza's practice of cutting fingers off disobedient/disrespectful members (traditionally to weaken their sword grip, so that they'd have to rely more on their gang brothers) or something?
 

lithy

Most Prominent Member of Chat
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Dec 1, 2002
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I'm surprised no one posted this scene yet:


 

LoneSage

A Broken Man
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cheers, my vpn was off before, didn't show up
 

Ralfakick

J. Max's Chauffeur,
20 Year Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2001
Posts
3,733
In 2007 my brother was teaching English in Nagasaki, so I visited him with my parents.

We went to the atomic bomb museum and ground zero. I just checked my phone and I had this picture saved from then when. I backed them up to google photos. Basically they dropped the bomb right on a church believe it or not, and this small part of the church survived the blast. The rings indicate the blast radius

1B37EFBB-759B-4135-8899-5E1E45EDC600.jpeg
Here’s a couple more photos I had saved
7EBA2B66-DEEF-4B41-BB3D-A796B2F994F0.jpeg
There were monuments all around people had made paper cranes and attached them.

Also around that time I saw the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian Museum in DC, not the main museum, but an additional hanger/ museum they have planes at as well.
 

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