(W/A) Keiji Nakazawa
Gen continues to confront one setback after another when a chance encounter gives new direction to his life. In Volume 9, an impoverished but talented artist takes Gen under his wing and teaches him to paint. Inspired by the artist's assertion that art has no borders, Gen vows to become an artist himself, and takes a job as apprentice to a local poster painter. Volume 10 sees Gen become a skilled artist, while his friends run a thriving dressmaking business. Gen falls in love for the first time, but fails to notice that a good friend has been caught in the clutches of drug addiction. Heartbreak and loss await Gen as the atomic bomb continues to wreak havoc on the lives people in Hiroshima years after the war.