Can comics be understood as Bildungsromane? Erik Rading examines this question using the first four volumes of Barfuß durch Hiroshima (Barefoot Gen) by the Japanese mangaka Keiji Nakazawa as an example. With his approach of analysing comics for pedagogically relevant elements of the Bildungsroman and his reflections on a specific hermeneutics of this narrative form, he enters largely uncharted scientific territory.