The Matsue City board of education in Shimane Prefecture on Aug. 26 withdrew its earlier decision to severely limit access to the 10-volume manga series "Hadashi no Gen" ("Barefoot Gen"), a best-selling antiwar and anti-nuclear weapons classic. The board said that individual elementary and junior high schools can return the series to their library shelves. The decision to do so was left to the judgment of each school.
Unfortunately, the board cited only a procedural reason for rescinding its decision and failed to express regret over violating children's right to read books. Deplorably, the head of the board's secretariat, who unilaterally made the original decision to remove "Hadashi no Gen" from school library shelves and require students to get teachers' permission to read it, was not punished at all.
The series was drawn by the late Keiji Nakazawa, a survivor the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing of Hiroshima who died last December. The main character, Gen Nakaoka, a 6-year-old boy, goes through various experiences during and after World War II. The series graphically depicts not only the harsh reality of the atomic bombing and the hardship in the immediate postwar years but also atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army, such as the beheading of other Asians and rape. It also includes harsh criticism of the Emperor Showa, at times calling him a "murderer."