Three years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Gen Nakaoka, his mother Kimie, and his adopted brother Ryuta are scavenging for food and scrap metal to sell in the black market as Hiroshima, like the rest of Japan, struggles to rebuild following World War II. While Kimie starts working at a geta factory, Gen and Ryuta attend school in a ruined building, in which they meet a gang of orphaned children and their leader Masa in a hostile first encounter. Gen and Ryuta start a shoe-shining business that Masa's gang disrupts, drawing the attention of policemen who attempt to place them in an orphanage. The brothers fight off the police and hide with Masa and their gang in their shelter, where Gen learns that the orphans pickpocket in the black market in order to survive. Realizing Masa's desperation for quality life, Gen and Ryuta join his gang in solitude. Gen befriends Katsuko, one of the orphans who sustained serious burns in the bombing, and Masa's gang invites Suekichi, a retired journalist who lost his family in the Hiroshima bombing, to live with them. After Gen rallies the orphans into constructing a new home out of wood and other materials from abandoned buildings around town, they raid a potato field at night, but the field's farmers catch them and kill Katchin, a member of Masa's gang, as the orphans retreat. Meanwhile, Gen notices that he can now give Kimie piggyback rides despite being much smaller than her, which leads him to suspect that her health is failing. He and Ryuta learn from doctors that because of the atomic bombing, she is suffering from radiation sickness that progressively worsens with time. Kimie begins to vomit blood after her children come home for dinner one evening, distressing Gen and prompting him to take her to a surgeon, who informs Gen that Kimie has only four months to live. Gen refuses to accept that his mother will die and tries to convince her to let him and Ryuta work in her place, but Kimie insists that she work out of fondness for Gen's late father and the lessons he taught, which moves Gen and Ryuta into assisting her with building geta. Gen, Ryuta, and Masa attempt to steal copper from a shipyard to buy penicillin for Kimie, but their boat sinks as they return from the yard, forcing the trio to return to shore empty-handed. Later, they witnessed the Americans had conducted an improper burial on the remains of the victims who suffered nuclear attack, and were chased off. However, they discover copper bullets in an abandoned firing range, and Ryuta gets Masa's gang to collect them into a wheelbarrow. Gen and Ryuta return home with money for the penicillin, but they discover Kimie in her death throes and carry her to a hospital. Along the way, Kimie dies on Gen's back after urging him to live on without her. Gen has Kimie cremated and races Ryuta, Masa, and the other orphans while reminiscing upon his parents' influence on his life.
Cast
Issei Miyazaki as Gen Nakaoka
Masaki Kōda as Ryuta Nakaoka, Gen's younger adopted brother and Shinji Nakaoka, Gen's younger brother
Yoshie Shimamura as Kimie Nakaoka, Gen's mother
Kei Nakamura as Masa, the leader of a gang of orphans. In the manga, Masa was a yakuza who opposed Ryuta.
Takami Aoyama as Katsuko, one of Masa's companions
