Grave of the Fireflies (火垂るの墓)(1988)-Reunion in Afterlife

Isao Takahata

Toru Hara

Yoshifumi Kondo
Megumi Kagawa
Kitaro Kosaka
Hideaki Anno

Michio Mamiya

Yoshiyuki Momose

Fukiko Hashizume
Eiji Hirakawa
Shûichi Hirata
Toru Hishiyama
Junko Ina
Yoshinari Kanebako
Mutsuo Koseki
Yôji Nakaza
Eiko Sudô
Noriko Takaya
Seiki Tamura

Studio Ghibli

04/16/1988

89 min (full version), 3 min (clip)

Technicolor

Synopsis

Based on the 1967 novel of the same name by Akiyuki Nosaka (野坂 昭如, 1930–2015), Grave of the Fireflies tells the tragic story of two orphan siblings, Seita and Setsuko, struggling for survival during the wartime Japan in the final months of World War II (1945), when American bombs destroyed their home in the city of Kobe. Losing their mother after the bombing, the children sought refuge from a distant aunt, who, only concerned for her family’s well-being, became increasingly hostile toward them. Unable to bear their aunt’s mistreatment, Seita and Setsuko moved to an abandoned bomb shelter and started providing for themselves, which turned out not to be ideal. Setsuko, the younger sister, fell ill as a result of malnutrition. Although Seita tried hard to gather food from theft and withdraw family money from the bank, he was unable to bring Setsuko back. The selected clip shows Seita burning his sister’s corpse and departing the bomb shelter, concluding with him dying from starvation a month later. The brother and sister reunited in the afterlife as they wandered among fireflies, watching Japan in its modern day from a distance.

Reception:

Grave of the Fireflies was made and released the same time with My Neighbor Totoro (1988) by Studio Ghibli. Initially the distribution company as well as producers questioned the studio’s capability of dual production of feature-length animated films, but was later convinced by Isao Takahata (Dudok de Wit 18). 

Takahatao pursued an accurate and naturalistic reconstruction of history by studying texture of Kobe’s soil, direction from which American bombs approached Kobe, behaviour of 4-year old girls at play and recruiting voice actors who speak dialect of Kobe (et al. 29) However, due to the exquisitely precision in reconstructing the reality, the film was forced to be elongated from 60 to 88 minutes and was almost unable to release on time (et al. 30). When the film eventually made it to the theatre, there are sections unfinished, as exemplified by the sequence in which Seita was caught for stealing was left uncoloured. As a result of Fireflies’ incompletion, Takahata, whose reputation severely deteriorated in the animation industry, was left unemployed until Hayao Miyazaki invited him to produce his next feature Only Yesterday (1991) (et al. 31). 

Similar to Totoro, Fireflies is also a reflection of the director’s childhood in dealing with trauma and forced entrance into adulthood, as he experienced hardship in moving away from childhood memory of bombing (Takahata 62; Dudok de Wit 23). In terms of depiction of war, Fireflies does not glorify either side of the Pacific War, the army of Imperial Japan and America (Dudok de Wit 76). Instead, the film focuses on individual experience and response to war predicament in the form of Seita and Setsuko struggling with starvation (et al. 76). Two essential motifs, fireflies and candy tin, repeatedly appear in the film to convey a tragic sense of depletion of life. The short-lived fireflies serve as metaphor of high mortality, whereas candy tin running out of candy is symbolically suggesting Setsuko’s life is coming to an end (Takahata 62). Despite Fireflies often being interpreted as an anti-war film by explicitly settling in wartime Japan and depicting suffering of children, Takahata insistently rejected the anti-war paradigm. He considered the film more of a social commentary of youngsters of 1980s Japan who are represented by Seita whose pride in refusing to live with his aunt and finding a proper job is what truly contributed to the tragic death of his sister and himself (Dudok de Wit 78). Takahata hoped to use the story of Seita to remind modern day young people who similarly only act in ways they please instead of working out of laziness (el at. 78; Takahata 63). However, most audiences become more sympathetic instead of critical toward the protagonists, thus failing to receive Takahata’s message (Takahata 63). 

The film was well received domestically and internationally by winning the Special Award of Blue Ribbon Awards in 1989, Animation Jury Award and Rights of the Child Award in Chicago International Children’s Film Festival in 1994 (“超意外な結果!?ジブリ映画の興行収入ランキング. シネマズ PLUS”).

References:

Dudok de Wit, Alex. Grave of the Fireflies. British Film Institute, 2021.

Takahata, Isao. “Grave of the Fireflies: Japan, 1988 – 90 minutes.” 100 Animated Feature Films: Revised Edition. By Andrew Osmond . London: British Film Institute, 2022. 62–63. BFI Screen Guides. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 2 May 2024. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781839024450.0031>.

“超意外な結果!?ジブリ映画の興行収入ランキング. シネマズ PLUS” Cinemas PLUS. 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20190709195712/https://cinema.ne.jp/recommend/ghibli2016062517/