A recap of the anime movie Barefoot Gen.
Recap:
Japan, 1945. During the final months of World War II, Japan has been heavily bombed by US forces from north to south. Meanwhile, in America, a top-secret project was in progress to develop the atomic bomb, the greatest weapon mankind has ever seen.
Cut to Hiroshima. Gen and his family—father Daikichi, mother Kimie, older sister Eiko, and younger brother Shinji—are living in poverty. With just one meal a day, they feel very hungry and have used up all their ration tickets. It's not just them: so many in Japan are suffering that they witness several men get into a fight over rice porridge.
When they arrive home, they find their mother Kimie has been hiding a treat: a whole potato. Gen and Shinji chase each other over it until Eiko snatches the potato out of their hands. She says that her mother has to eat it as she is pregnant. Even though Kimie tells her that Gen and Shinji can eat it, the potato is still given to the mother. The two sons then discover that the baby is kicking about in Kimie's body and speculate if it will be a boy or girl. Shinji wants it to be a boy and wishes it to be born soon.
In the night, an air raid alert is issued and the family has to run to the shelter. Gen tricks his brother into thinking he has a full bowl of noodles, and Eiko catches them, ordering them to go into the shelter. While Gen shrugs it off as scout planes, he is reminded by his mother about a girl who was slaughtered by a P-51's machine guns in Area Four. Daikichi comments on the fact that every area of Japan has been bombed but Hiroshima. Soon afterwards, the air raid alert is lifted, confirming Gen's suspicions.
When they return home, Kimie feels dizzy and gets unconscious, so the two sons rush to get a doctor. The doctor tells them that she needs rest and nutritious food, but in wartime food and medicine are hard to come by. Unfortunately for them, they have no money or rice.
The next day, Shinji wonders if caterpillars are edible, which freaks out him and Gen. Boku comes up and they both tell him about the situation, to which he responds that drinking carp's blood and eating their meat is good for their energy. Soon they go out to a nearby pond to fish for carp. After they have caught one, the owner of the pond comes and fights them both. Gen makes demands to be hit more to keep the carp for his mother, to which the owner agrees without hitting them.
With the carp in hand, they return home for it to be cooked for Mother. They wonder if the war will be over, to which Daikichi responds that Japan has lost the war and that they are still fighting because their leaders and army heads are wrong. That night, Gen and Shinji both get hugged by their parents and are given kusamochi by the pond owner.
August 6, 1945. Three B-29 bombers have taken off from the Mariana Islands, heading for Hiroshima. Gen has made a Japanese Navy ship out of wood and they plan to float the boat on the river. Gen and a classmate are headed to school. Seconds afterwards, an air raid siren is sounded. It turns out no bombs were dropped again, thus it is lifted. Gen notices a B-29 bomber flying ahead, without any air raid siren.
That B-29 is Enola Gay and it drops the atomic bomb.
Devastation occurs around Hiroshima. The city is razed to the ground in slow motion, with slow-motion close ups of people being incinerated and instantly killed in the blast—a young girl, a man, an elderly man, a woman and baby, and a dog. Gen turns to see his classmate's face half melted before he is blown away in the shock wave, his shoes knocked off his feet. At his home Daikichi, Eiko, and Shinji, are caught under the house collapsing while Kimie falls to the ground along with the balcony. Everyone not in some degree of cover is melted, impaled by flying debris, or radiated by the blast of Little Boy.
Gen survives the blast, buried in the rubble under a tree. He notices the hand of the girl he was speaking to covered in the rubble and when he tries to pull her out, realizes she is dead. He finds his city in ruins, corpses everywhere and zombie-like figures with eyes melted out of their sockets walking around the city. A horse on fire runs by and collapses, showing that what isn't destroyed is aflame. He runs home and finds that his house is on fire. His mother Kimie is free but Eiko, Shinji, and Daikichi are buried and trapped under the burning house; he and his mother try to leverage them free but Daikichi tells Gen to take care of his mother and the baby now, realizing he's dying. His mother insists that she wants to stay and die with them, but Gen drags her away, and they hear and see the other three members of the family burn to death in the fires. His mother has a breakdown watching and hearing them die, and a neighbor who has survived, Mr. Park, realizes she's hysterical and won't move. He runs over and carries Kimie away with Gen following them, and the fires burn.
Mr. Park takes Gen and his mother near the river, where people are falling in, drowning, and dying. The stress of everything then goes into labor and tells Gen to find a midwife and doctor. He's unsuccessful—practically everyone around his is dying or dead—and with no one to care for her, Gen gathers what he can and has to do it himself. The baby is successfully born and is a girl—Gen sobs to his late family that Shinji was wrong and that she's the most beautiful girl in the world. That night, Black rain caused by the radioactive dust, ash, and debris falls. Bothered by the noises of the dying and unable to sleep, Gen and his mother go and attempt to give water to thirsty survivors. Due to the radioactive poisoning, though, it kills them quickly, and Kimie and Gen realize they can't give them water.
Kimie discovers that due to eating nothing for three days, she hasn't produced milk for the baby. They have to look for food. He discovers a few people have rice balls and tells him that an army truck is giving food away. He heads to Dobashi only to discover the trucks are full of corpses. To his horror, the Japanese Army is attempting to dispose of the thousands of corpses the only way they can—a heartless endeavor—by burning or carrying them away on barges. Gen feels like they're treating the dead like trash instead of people. He finds a fireman's hat among the debris and takes it for his own.
Meanwhile, Kimie is trying to find milk for her baby, when a mother comes and threatens to kill the baby. She ends up giving her milk instead and apologises for the threats.
Gen spots a soldier complaining of it being cold, even though Hiroshima is hot. The soldier gets a bloody stool and his hair falls out. He vomits blood and Gen tries to rescue him by taking him to a makeshift hospital. It turns out the hospital has run out of medicine and it can only treat people with chances of surviving. Soon after, the soldier dies from pika. The narration tells us that the bomb killed over 200,000 people instantly and gave survivors terrible side effects.
Gen goes to rest on a mountain of bags, which turn out to have burnt rice in them. He digs deep to find some fresh rice and pickles inside, ensuring his mother and baby's survival. That night, they name the baby Tomoko, standing for "child with friends". Soon, Gen finds out to his horror that his hair is falling out.
America announced it had dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and demanded the Japanese surrender. However, the Japanese did not. Three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki was hit by the second atomic bomb. Only then does Japan surrender, ending World War II officially.
Gen builds a shelter where his house once stood. His mother doesn't have any milk and the rice may run out soon. A hungry child sneaks into the house so Gen chases him. He has an uncanny resemblance to Shinji, but his name is actually Ryuta Kondo. He hasn't eaten for four days and his family died of pika, so Gen offers him his rice, which he soon entirely eats. Kimie offers her rice as well. They soon allow him to live with them.
Gen and Ryuta are advertising for work. Soon a man comes along and offers a job for ten yen a day. To their horror, they have to take care of a man that is infested with maggots. The man, named Seiji, is ruthless, kicking Gen and throwing the book that Ryuta gave him on the floor. They beat him up and prepare to leave, but he demands to be hit more. He tells them that they are the only ones who took care of him and got rid of the maggots.
With 100 yen accumulated, they head out to buy milk for Tomoko. They visit a black market and buy powdered milk that has been obtained from America. They chant as they return but by the time they arrive, they see Kimie cradling Tomoko, who is still and pale; she has died of starvation. Her death devastates Gen and Ryuta and sends Gen into a breakdown where he pleads that she should have waited longer and didn't say goodbye. They cremate Tomoko that night, and Gen sobs to his late family that he couldn't save Tomoko either and apologizes. The rest of the night is quiet, with Gen hunched in a corner.
The next day by the river, Ryuta talks about how he heard from another man no grass or trees will grow in Hiroshima for 70 years after the devastation as a means to try and gen Gen to talk, but Gen doesn't respond. Ryuta asks if he'll be sad forever as they walk back, noting they're still alive if nothing else, and Gen is still silent. His fireman's hat blows off, and Ryuta chases it, catching it and seeing sprouts in the ground where he lands which Gen identifies as wheat. Gen remembers Daikichi's words about wheat—that it starts to sprout in the winter and despite being buffered and crushed, it grows and survives. He rubs against the sprouts, and Ryuta points out that Gen's hair is growing back, claiming that it was given to him by Tomoko who won't need it anymore, to which Gen agrees and says it means a part of her is with him forever. As Ryuta runs to tell Kimie, Gen pledges to his late father that he won't give up and he'll make him proud.
Remembering how Shinji said he wanted Gen to come home to float his boat down the river, Gen carves a new boat to float on the river. Kimie lights a candle in a lamp on top of it, and Gen lets it float away. The boat, and its lit lamp in memory of their family gone, sails off into the distance.
