Barefoot Maus

Well. That is not exactly my ideal way to wake up in the morning. "Barefoot Gen" is so depressing. Every time something happy happens, you know something bad is just around the corner. Once the boys got the money they wanted... I knew something was going to happen. Once they bought the milk, I thought to myself "...The baby's going to be dead." And of course, it was. It was a general movie at first. It just seemed to be in the style of generic anime, but the topics were much more serious than most animes I've viewed in my life. It was interesting to think about. I remember learning about Hiroshima and Nagasaki when I took a history class and it made enough of an impact on my mind to be able to remember it so well. But seeing it, even through an anime, made more of an impact. Just because it's in an anime, doesn't mean that it didn't get the impact it was supposed to.

As for "Maus", another way of impacting people through animals and graphic novel. Some people might think that it's meant to humor the readers a little, but I don't think it does. I think that the choice of animals makes it all the more interesting. I question the choices that were made. The Jews were represented by mice. Is it because of the animal in general? Mice to many are just annoying rodents that no one cares for. Vermin. Did Spiegelman do it on purpose? I'm assuming so. It's depressing to think about how the jews were seen like vermin to the leaders of the Holocaust. Spiegelman's father was the center of the graphic novel. It must have been hard on him to reflect back on the things that he had gone through. Reflecting back on the bad things that you've gone through can never be a fun thing to do.

Honestly, I'm not sure if I want to ever read that again. It was enough the first time around. I think it's personally one of the graphic novels that you only have to read once to make an impact on you. It's not like Shaun Tan's "Arrival". It's not something that has some attractive form that makes you want to go back to it. It's not a pleasant story. Nowhere in the story do I think "Yes! I love that!" How could you love "Maus"? It's very well done and gives you a glance into the eyes of someone who went through hell. Even through the form of a mouse. Besides, there are a lot of people out there who love animals. For example, you might watch a movie and with humans dying in it, you pay little attention. But they kill a dog and you're sad. I'm an example of that. In "I Am Legend" I cried when Will Smith had to kill his dog. I'm more sympathetic to animals than humans in fictional things. And "Maus" isn't really fictional. It's just the way that it's represented. You might be more upset if you see a mouse getting tortured than a human. Now that's not necessarily how all people feel, that's just my view personally. I might connect more. But another reason is that he needed a new way to depict the Holocaust. The story has been told over and over again. But has anyone told it through a mouse's point of view before? No. Curiosity ensues.

Something else I enjoyed was how the mice were all represented as the same form. They all looked the same, but there was a change of clothing. That was the only way you could tell them apart. It was a clever way of getting through that. One could say that the choice was to unite the Jews in general. Or their could be the fact that the Germans saw the Jews as all the same. Their individualism didn't matter. No matter what they looked like, it made no difference. They still died. So I find it fitting that the mice all basically looked the same, other than their clothing.

"Barefoot Gen" and "Maus" relate to each other in many ways. They are both stories of the second world war, although on the opposite sides. Depicted in different ways, both "Barefoot Gen" and "Maus" are more about suffering and the nature of war. There are always struggles with power. Someone wants control and fighting ensues. Peace is harder to achieve than war.