Barefoot Gen 2 (はだしのゲン2)
Barefoot Gen 2 (はだしのゲン2) is a 1986 Japanese animated drama film, the second theatrical adaptation of Keiji Nakazawa's manga Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen), directed by Toshio Hirata (平田敏夫) as a sequel to the 1983 film Barefoot Gen.1 • 2 It runs 86 minutes and was released theatrically in Japan on June 14, 1986.1
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Japanese title | はだしのゲン2 (Hadashi no Gen 2)1 |
| Release | June 14, 1986, Japan; 86 minutes; distributor: Eiga Center National Liaison Council and Gen Production1 • 2 |
| Director / screenplay | Toshio Hirata; screenplay by Hideo Takayashiki (高屋敷英夫)1 |
| Source | Manga Hadashi no Gen by Keiji Nakazawa (中沢啓治)1 |
| Setting | Hiroshima, three years after the atomic bombing; Gen is now a fourth-grade elementary school student2 • 3 |
| Lead voice cast | Gen: Kazuhiro Miyazaki (宮崎一成); Ryuta: Masaki Koda (甲田将樹); mother Kimie: Yoshie Shimajima (島村佳江)2 |
| Music | Kentaro Haneda (羽田健太郎)1 |
Spoilers
Story
The film is set three years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Gen, now in the fourth grade of elementary school, lives with his orphan companion Ryuta and his mother, working to survive as the city shows the first signs of recovery while still bearing visible scars of war and the bomb.2 • 3 • 8
The central turn of the story is his mother Kimie's health: radiation from the atomic bomb is quietly damaging her body, and she falls ill from the aftereffects of her exposure. Gen then tries to earn money with a group of orphans he meets at the black market.2 The allcinema synopsis describes the film's themes as the bond between parent and child, and friendship, forged amid the harsh life of the postwar years.3
Relationship to the 1983 film
Where the first film depicted the bombing itself and its immediate, shocking aftermath, the sequel tells a story of postwar daily life.3 The allcinema synopsis notes that even several years after the end of the war, war and the atomic bomb are not things of the past, a point the film makes through the mother's radiation illness and the lingering damage visible in Hiroshima.3 The two films were made by different directors and screenwriters; the 1983 film was directed by Mori Masaki (真崎守).1 • 2
The 1986 film was produced at the Madhouse studio, which had also made the first film.4
Production credits
The staff listed by eiga.com and allcinema include Hideo Takayashiki for screenplay, Akio Sakai (さかいあきお) for character design and animation direction, Kin'ichi Ishikawa for photography, Masayoshi Banno for art, and Kentaro Haneda for music; producers were Takayoshi Yoshimoto and Yasuaki Iwase, with Taro Tanabe also credited by allcinema.1 • 3 The voice cast also includes Hiroki Nakamura as the black-market figure Masa, Takumi Aoyama as Katsuko, and Inoue Takao as the father Daikichi.2 • 5
Context in the Barefoot Gen franchise
Nakazawa Keiji, a Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor, drew the manga Hadashi no Gen from 1973 to 1985; it runs over 2,000 pages and is loosely based on his own experience, in which he lost his father, sister, and younger brother to the bomb.6 The manga was adapted into two animated films, released in Japan in 1983 and 1986 and later available in English translation from Geneon, into a live-action film trilogy in the 1970s, and into a 2007 TV drama.6 The live-action trilogy consisted of Hadashi no Gen (Tengo Yamada, 1976), Hadashi no Gen: Namida no Bakuhatsu (1977), and Hadashi no Gen Part 3: Hiroshima no Takataki (1980).7
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a Tomatometer score of 68% with no listed critic reviews, and an audience rating based on more than 250 ratings.8 Audience reviews there describe it as a continuation that shows the lingering and long-term effects of the bombing on Hiroshima's population, while several note it is not as strong as the first film.8 On the Japanese review site Filmarks, the film is characterized as a sequel in which the harrowing depictions of the immediate aftermath of the bomb are toned down compared with the first film, focusing instead on Gen, his family, and their companions struggling to live on afterward.9 A 2025 viewer review on eiga.com rated it 3.0 out of 5, noting that the story takes place three years after the previous film and that the boys are drawn more comically than before.1
References
- はだしのゲン・2 : 作品情報・キャスト・あらすじ, 映画.com
- はだしのゲン2 | 内容・スタッフ・キャスト・配信・作品情報, 映画ナタリー
- 映画アニメ はだしのゲン２ (1986), allcinema
- The takeoff and commercialization of Japanese animation cinema in the eighties, Imagofagia No. 4 (2011)
- はだしのゲン2(映画), WEBザテレビジョン
- Nakazawa Keiji and Richard H. Minear, "Hiroshima: The Autobiography of Barefoot Gen," Asia-Pacific Journal
- Prilozi za nastavu filma i medijske kulture, Hrvatsko filmsko društvo
- Barefoot Gen 2, Rotten Tomatoes
- はだしのゲン2, Filmarks映画
Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Animated and short films › Japanese anime features › Released 1932 to 1998
Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026
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