'Hibakusha' by Thilde Barboni with art by Olivier Cinna is a graphic novel story about a forbidden love in time of war.

Ludwig is a translator for the Nazis. When he gets the chance to go back to Japan and leave his loveless marriage behind, he takes it. He is stationed in Hiroshima near the end of the war, so the astute student of history will know what will happen. Ludwig pursues a forbidden love and attempts to do something heroic, but time is not on his side.

This was an interesting story, made even more so by the striking art. The art is beautiful and elevates a story that felt inevitable.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Europe Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

With thanks to Netgalley for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

Hibakusha is a beautiful graphic novel, lovely artwork and a heart-breaking story about memories

This beautifully illustrated graphic novel certainly offers a perspective into World War 2 we don't often get to see in the USA.
The protagonist is a translator for the Reich, who is stationed in Hiroshima towards the very end of the war. Having grown up in Japan he has a love for the country and the people, but actually does end up falling IN love with a massage therapist (he was injured as a child and walks with a pronounced limp).
Of course, the title, if you bother to look it up does give away a major plot point, as Hibakusha is a word for people who survived the dropping of the bombs on either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, so you KNOW bad things will happen here.

Thank you Netgalley and Europe Comics for the ARC!
Although I found the introductory scene unnecessarily oversexualized, I enjoyed reading a Hiroshima survival story as a graphic novel, given that I had never read anything touching on that subject matter in such a format.
The illustration are what I enjoyed the most, and I would fade finitely recommend it to anyone looking for a different take on Hiroshima, love and survival.

This is the story, mainly, of Ludwig, a German translator with strong Japanese links, around the time of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Central to his life during his second time in Japan is an idyllic affair with a beautiful Japanese girl. Resulting from the bombing, there is a transformation and, many years later, a touching encounter.

The artwork by Olivier Cinna is outstanding.

However, the script is flawed. For example, the initial panels depict an encounter in Germany which is not incorporated into the main narrative but troubles the reader in terms of working out a comprehensive overview. Nor is Ludwig very sympathetic.

Howevever, the striking artwork saves it.

Thilde Barboni’s Hibakusha is not a simple or straightforward graphic novel. By, definition, hibakusha is a descriptor denoting a survivor of either of the atomic explosions at Hiroshima or Nagasaki in 1945 and the novel explores that concept in both the physical and metaphor capacities.

Olivier Cinna’s artwork enhances the narrative with beautiful renderings that are at once strikingly emotional and brutally honest. I thought the imagery paired quite nicely with the narration and liked how it helped facilitate a connection to the novel’s German and Japanese cast.

I loved the central theme of this novel but admit to feeling the sexually charged introduction unnecessary. Having said that, I grew to appreciate the larger themes of the story and was ultimately touched by the stark and imaginative take on the shadows of Hiroshima.

Hibakusha is a tale set in real events. It’s sometimes heavy handed, sometimes a romance, and at a few points heartbreaking and concerning. It tells us a love story between a German man and a Japanese woman during WWII.
This is one of those stories where you sort of know how it’s going to end right from the beginning. Even if you don’t know the specifics…you get a feel for things. As details are revealed through the course of the storytelling…then you start to really know how it will all end.
Hibakusha has several iconic scenes and moments – many of them based from real life events and locations. The building we see so much of, for example, is none other than the Atomic Dome (one of the few buildings left standing after the bomb was dropped). The silhouettes of victims of the bombing are real as well – it’s just the story behind one of them that may not be quite the truth.
This was an interesting read, on the whole. It was depressing, but it did have its uplifting moments as well. I do think it romanticized the time a bit…but it did tell a wonderful narrative along the way, and it carried an important message. So all things considered I’m okay with it.

Hbakusha its a beautiful artwork. The history is short but very impressive for the draw and the plot. The story is around the 1945 and talks about a man who find a love in Japan, in Hiroshima. This man is a translator, is a German and is working in the enemy territory where he falls madly in love. The theme of the story is important as it reminds us how much the nuclear bomb has been destroyed and what we have all lost.
A beautiful story about love, history, peace and powerful memories.

I really didn't enjoyed it. It looked like a sexual fantasy written by a teen. I couldn't even finish it and that does not happen to me much.

A beautiful graphic novel. Great artwork and storyline throughout. I'll definitely recommend this one to patrons.

It was too short for any kind of bondage with the story. I like stories set during WWI/WWII, but this didn't work for me. But I understand what the author wanted to say. There is a lack of something I can't describe, that was bothering me while I was reading it. So, decent story, brilliant artwork.

Hibakusha it's a beautiful artwork about regret, love and madness.
I was really confused at the beginning, it felt a little bit rushed. Ludwig is not the kind of character i would care about. He was a Nazi, and that was a no for me. I think I would have enjoyed more if the story was a little longer and the author showed a redemption arc to the character. His romantic interest wasn't real enough to me, she seemed like an interesting character, but nothing was said about her.
I REALLY loved the drawings.
Keep up with the good work

A great story of being a hibakashu. I have learnt more about world war 2 and the Hitler phase and how Hiroshima nuclear bomb attack has affected people.How humanity goes on.
Surely i learnt many things and the art is good too.
Giving it 3 stars because it made me uncomfortable sometimes.

A difficult but enlightening short read. The colours were muted which was appropriate for the storyline. I learnt a lot about the Hiroshima tragedy from this.

Thank you, NetGalley for the preview of this graphic novel.

I have always been fascinated by the shadows/ human imprints left by the Hiroshima bombing on buildings and the streets. "Hibakusha" cleverly weaves these imprints into its plot.

The bombs that exploded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki imprinted shadows of the dead on streets and rocks. Hibakusha (a word that denotes a survivor of the bombing) is the story of a shadow.

A German named Ludwig picks up a hitchhiker in the woods near Berlin. She flees his car when she learns that he brought a delegation from the Hitler Youth Corps to Japan, where Ludwig lived in his childhood. Such is Ludwig’s luck with women.

Ludwig works for a gas factory. He is sent to Japan to translate some documents. Ludwig is met upon arrival by a man he knows, a man who maimed him when they were children. Ludwig thanks the man for his boyhood cruelty because it saved him from fighting on the front. But it is 1945 and Ludwig will be doing his translating in Hiroshima. Germany will soon surrender and Germans will be viewed as traitors to Japan. That’s not good for Ludwig, but the anticipation of Ludwig’s execution will ultimately save the Japanese woman he comes to love.

Hibakusha is a love story. It is also the story of an indifferent man who has walled himself off from the war, a man who comes to understand that he can no longer be neutral about the immorality of using gas to exterminate human beings. The story suggests that Ludwig, as a shadow, will bear witness to the insanity of mass destruction. That’s a meaningful lesson in a carefully crafted story.

The darkness of the story is conveyed in muted colors, but the story’s optimistic moments shine through with colors that are bright and vibrant. Conveying the horror of Hiroshima from the perspective of one man, and a German at that, is a stroke of brilliance. A story that is small and personal conveys a universal message that is as large as human history.

“ I gaze at the stars. They’re like lanterns lighting up eternity. How fragile our present is, in the face of such eternity.
That is not now I feel about it at all. I feel like eternity is on our side. That it’ll never abandon us.”

This story is about a German translator, Ludwig, who leaves Berlin and a loveless marriage to work on translating documents in Japan. He follows the rules he is given but is not without dreams and ambition. Due to the brevity of the novel there is not much character development but it does not take away to the impact these characters had with me as I was reading. Ludwig falls in love with a Japanese woman and when he is declared a traitor and imprisoned he is able to see her one last time. And as the reader we know what is to happen next, the tragedy that strikes when the atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, and like many people Ludwig was killed. We do see how Ludwig is just one of many victims of war. The scene where Ludwig's love, now a grandmother, goes back to the nuclear shadow that is Ludwig to talk to him is heartbreaking, I had no idea such things existed but after looking it up it was even more devastating. I really liked the art style, I think it fit the story line very well.
Thanks to Netgalley and Europe Comics for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

Script: Thilde Barboni
Artwork: Olivier Cinna

Description:
Ludwig has never been a soldier. A childhood injury left him lame in one leg, which has allowed him to largely sit out the war on the sidelines, as a translator. Fleeing his passionless marriage, he accepts an assignment in Japan, allowing him to return to the land of his youth. But the year is 1945. It is not a good time to be Japanese, or German… much less stationed in Hiroshima. Ludwig is tempted by love and, in furtively tampering with his translations of classified documents, by the chance to do something heroic. But none of that will save him...

My Thoughts:
Hibakusha is the Japanese term for survivors of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima or Nagasaki in 1945. To read about the personal experience of Hibakusha, try Barefoot Gen, a graphic novel series by Keiji Nakazawa. There is also a very good multigenre novel titled Sachiko by Caron Stilson.

This is a fictional love story of a German translator and a Japanese woman in Hiroshima in 1945. What makes this intriguing is that the author starts with the haunting images of people's shadows incinerated in stone.

When I was a child, my mother and I lived in Japan so she could teach English at a Japanese high school. My maternal grandmother had family in Hiroshima so on our school holidays we would catch the shinkansen, bullet train, from Osaka to Hiroshima to stave off our homesickness by visiting relatives. At seven, I visited the peace memorial in Hiroshima and the image of the stone with the shadow of the person that was sitting on that stone continued to haunt me. Like the shoes in the Holocaust museum in DC, the shadow on the stone has stayed with me all these years. I can understand, then Barboni's desire to create a story around the shadow in the stone.

In her own haunted imagination she wonders if the stone can remember. She wants to know if the soul of the person memorialized in the stone can be immortalized in the rock. That is what is most fascinating about this story.

A digital copy provided by Net Galley and the publisher for an honest review.

It was a hard but charming reading. I loved the art a lot, very sensitive and colors were great. The ending was awesome.

A powerful tale of love and loss during WW2. The protagonist is a translator/interpreter for Germany stationed in in Japan. He falls in love with a Japanese woman near the end of the war. Good art and a strong narrative.