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1988 Japanese animated film
the 1988 film

(Japan)

In March 1945, American Boeing B 29 Superfortress bombers destroy most of Kobe during the close of World War II. Military children of an Imperial Japanese Navy captain, Seita and Setsuko, survive, but their mother is severely injured and later dies. Seita conceals their mother's death from Setsuko to keep her happy. The siblings move in with a distant aunt, and Seita retrieves supplies he buried before the bombing and gives everything to his aunt, save for a tin of Sakuma drops. As rations shrink, the aunt convinces Seita to sell his mother's silk kimonos for rice, which she divides between Seita and herself. Seita also uses some of his mother's money in the bank to buy supplies. As the two live with their aunt, tensions start to build. The aunt uses most of the rice to make onigiri for her lodger and daughter, who are contributing towards the war effort, while mostly making rice porridge for herself, Seita and Setsuko. One day, Setsuko complains about eating rice porridge, Seita assures her that they will have onigiri for lunch causing the aunt to lose her temper and say she's only making them for her daughter and lodger who are working. After she suggests they make their own separate meals from then on, Seita goes out and buys a stove and full set of cooking utensils, but neglects to wash their dishes. This, Setsukos tantrums during the night, their reading manga and playing music during the day and not helping clear up after air raids, cause the aunt to fume about their uselessness. Eventually, Seita and Setsuko decide to leave and they move into an abandoned bomb shelter by July. They capture and release fireflies from the marshes into the refuge for light. The next day, the fireflies die; Setsuko buries them and reveals their aunt told her their mom died, then mournfully asks why they died so soon. As they run out of rice, Seita steals from farmers and loots homes during air raids, for which a farmer brutally assaults him. A police officer realizes Seita is stealing due to hunger and makes the farmer back off. Having nothing left to trade for food, Seita asks a farmer who had previously sold them food if he can sell them more, but he has run out of food himself. He tells Seita that everything is rationed and it is impossible to survive outside of the system; encouraging him to swallow his pride and go back and live with his aunt, which Seita declines. When Setsuko falls ill, a doctor explains that she is suffering from malnutrition. Desperate, Seita withdraws the last of the money from their mother's bank account. After doing so, he becomes distraught when he learns that Japan has surrendered and that his father is most likely dead, as most of Japan's navy has been sunk. Seita returns to Setsuko with food but finds her dying. She later dies as Seita finishes preparing the food. Seita cremates Setsuko's body and her stuffed doll in a straw casket. He carries her ashes in the candy tin along with his father's photograph. That September, Seita dies of starvation at a Sannomiya train station surrounded by other malnourished people. A janitor is tasked with removing the bodies before the arrival of the Americans. The janitor sorts through Seita's possessions and finds the candy tin, which he throws into a field. Setsuko's ashes spread out, and her spirit springs from the container and is joined by Seita's spirit and a cloud of fireflies. They board a ghostly train and, throughout the journey, look back at the events leading to their deaths as silent, passive observers. Their spirits arrive at their destination: a hilltop bench overlooking present day Kobe, surrounded by fireflies, healthy and content.

CharacterJapanese voice actorEnglish voice actor Skypilot Entertainment/CPM (1998) Toho/Seraphim/Sentai (2012)Seita Yokokawa (横川 清太)Tsutomu TatsumiJ. Robert SpencerAdam GibbsSetsuko Yokokawa (横川 節子)白石綾乃Corinne OrrEmily NevesMrs. Yokokawa (横川 さん)志乃原良子Veronica TaylorShelley Calene BlackSeita and Setsuko's aunt山口朱美Amy JonesMarcy BannorSeita and Setsuko's cousinKazumi NozakiShannon Conley DoctorHiroshi KawaguchiDan GreenDavid Wald

Grave of the Fireflies author Akiyuki Nosaka said that many offers had been made to make a live action film adaptation of his short story. Nosaka argued that "it was impossible to create the barren, scorched earth that's to be the backdrop of the story". Takahata explained that any wartime story, whether animated or not animated, "tends to be moving and tear jerking", and that young people develop an "inferiority complex" where they perceive people in wartime eras as being more noble and more able than they are, and therefore the audience believes that the story has nothing to do with them. Takahata argued that he wanted to dispel this mindset. Takahata said that Setsuko was even more difficult to animate than Seita, and that he had never before depicted a girl younger than five. Most of the illustration outlines in the film are in brown, instead of the customary black. Black outlines were only used when it was absolutely necessary. Color coordinator Michiyo Yasuda said this was done to give the film a softer feel. Yasuda said that this technique had never been used in an anime before Grave of the Fireflies, "and it was done on a challenge". Takahata insisted on working with well known animators Yoshifumi Kondō who was working for Nippon Animation at the time and Yoshiyuki Momose. Both animators played a pivotal role in creating fluid, realistic animations of the characters in the animation. Takahata drew from his personal experience to create a realistic depiction of the air raid on Okayama. In an interview, he criticized TV shows and movies that had recreated images of incendiary bombs, "They include no sparks or explosions, I was there and I experienced it, so I know what it was like." The film features Niteko ike pond (ニテコ池), which is described as the "birthplace" of the novel and where Nosaka conducted his daily routines of dishwashing and personal ablutions. Notably, during the final days of the Pacific War, Nosaka, then 14 years old, sought refuge with his younger sister in law in a relative's house and nearby bomb shelters near the pond. The location and background in the film is based on a style created by 18th century Japanese artist Hiroshige and his follower Hergé, who created Tintin. Film critic Roger Ebert examines the contrast of the style of the background in comparison to the cartoonish animation of the characters. He claims that there is an unusual amount of detail in the evocative landscape, while the characters are a take on the modern Japanese animation with childlike bodies and enormous eyes. The depiction of Seita and Setsuko have Ebert believe that this deliberate animation style embodies the true purpose of animation, which is to recreate the raw emotion of human life by simplifying reality to emphasize ideas. He concludes his analysis with saying, "Yes, it's a cartoon, and the kids have eyes like saucers, but it belongs on any list of the greatest war films ever made." Dialogue of the film is part of the soundtrack as the music and dialogue are not separated in any way. Mamiya is also a music specialist in baroque and classical music. During an interview about his music, Mamiya stated that he creates his music to encourage peace. The songs in Grave of the Fireflies as well as other pieces by Michio Mamiya such as Serenade No.3 "Germ", express this theme. Some critics in the West have viewed Grave of the Fireflies as an anti war film due to the graphic and emotional depiction of the pernicious repercussions of war on a society, and the individuals therein. The film focuses its attention almost entirely on the personal tragedies that war gives rise to, rather than seeking to glamorize it as a heroic struggle between competing nations. It emphasizes that war is society's failure to perform its most important duty: to protect its own people. However, Takahata repeatedly denied that the film was an anti war film. In his own words, it "is not at all an anti war anime and contains absolutely no such message". Instead, Takahata had intended to convey an image of the brother and sister living a failed life due to isolation from society and invoke sympathy particularly in people in their teens and twenties. Since the film gives little context to the war, Takahata feared a politician could just as easily claim fighting is needed to avoid such tragedies. In general, he was skeptical that depictions of suffering in similar works, such as Barefoot Gen, actually prevent aggression. The director was nevertheless an anti war advocate, a staunch supporter of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, and has openly criticized Japan's penchant for conformity, allowing them to be rallied against other nations. He expressed despair and anxiety whenever the youth are told to fall in line, a reminder that the country at its core has not changed. Despite the public's emotional reaction, Takahata expressed that the purpose of the film was not to be a tragedy or make people cry. Moreover, he regretted depicting Seita as a boy from that era because he wanted him to come off as a contemporary boy who acted like he had time traveled to the period. He didn't intend for it to be retrospective or nostalgic. He wanted the Japanese audience to be weary of Seita's behavior. Okypo Moon states in her essay "Marketing Nature in Rural Japan", that hundreds of fireflies were caught nightly in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a shift to reinstate this tradition and "there are now eighty five 'firefly villages' (hotaru no sato) registered at the Ministry of the Environment in Japan. The movie uses fireflies to visually represent both deadly and beautiful imagery, such as fire bombs and kamikazes.

The film was released on 16 April 1988, over 20 years from the publication of the short story. The initial Japanese theatrical release was accompanied by Hayao Miyazaki's light hearted My Neighbor Totoro as a double feature. While the two films were marketed toward children and their parents, the starkly tragic nature of Grave of the Fireflies turned away many audiences. However, Totoro merchandise, particularly the stuffed animals of Totoro and Catbus, sold extremely well after the film and made overall profits for the company to the extent that it stabilized subsequent productions of Studio Ghibli. Grave of the Fireflies is the only theatrical Studio Ghibli feature film prior to From Up on Poppy Hill to which Disney never had North American distribution rights, since it was not produced by Ghibli for parent company Tokuma Shoten but for Shinchosha, the publisher of the original short story (although Disney has the Japanese home video distribution rights themselves, thus replacing the film's original Japanese home video distributor, Bandai Visual). It was one of the last Studio Ghibli films to get an English language premiere by GKIDS.

Grave of the Fireflies was released in Japan on VHS by Buena Vista Home Entertainment under the Ghibli ga Ippai Collection on 7 August 1998. On 29 July 2005, a DVD release was distributed through Warner Home Video. Walt Disney Studios Japan released the complete collector's edition DVD on 6 August 2008. WDSJ released the film on Blu ray twice on 18 July 2012: one as a single release, and one in a two film set with My Neighbor Totoro (even though Disney has never owned the North American rights, only the Japanese rights). It was released on VHS in North America by Central Park Media in a subtitled form on 2 June 1993. They later released the film with an English dub on VHS on 1 September 1998 (the day Disney released Kiki's Delivery Service) and an all Regions DVD (which also included the original Japanese with English subtitles) on 7 October 1998. On 8 October 2002, it was later released on a two disc DVD set, which once again included both the English dub and the original Japanese with English subtitles as well as the film's storyboards with the second disc containing a retrospective on the author of the original book, an interview with the director, and an interview with critic Roger Ebert, who felt the film was one of the greatest of all time. ADV Films acquired the rights and re released it on DVD on 7 July 2009. Following the 1 September 2009 shutdown and re branding of ADV, their successor, Sentai Filmworks, rescued the film and released a remastered DVD on 6 March 2012, and planned to release the film on digital outlets. A Blu ray edition was released on 20 November 2012, featuring an all new English dub produced by Seraphim Digital. StudioCanal released a Blu ray in the United Kingdom on 1 July 2013, followed by Kiki's Delivery Service on the same format. It was the UK's tenth annual best selling foreign language film on home video in 2019 (below seven other Japanese films, including six Hayao Miyazaki anime films). Madman Entertainment released the film in Australia and New Zealand.

The film was modestly successful at the Japanese box office, where it grossed As part of the Studio Ghibli Fest 2018, the film had a limited theatrical release in the United States, grossing $516,962. The Ghibli ga Ippai Collection home video release of Grave of the Fireflies sold 400,000 copies in Japan. At a price of at least , this is equivalent to at least in sales revenue. The film received universal critical acclaim. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times considered it to be one of the best and most powerful war films and, in 2000, included it on his list of great films. The film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating based on 43 reviews with an average rating of 9.30/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "An achingly sad anti war film, Grave of the Fireflies is one of Studio Ghibli's most profoundly beautiful, haunting works." Metacritic assigned the film a score of 94 out of 100 based on 16 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Filmmaker Akira Kurosawa praised the film and considered it his favourite Ghibli production. He wrote a letter of praise to Hayao Miyazaki, mistakenly believing he directed Grave of the Fireflies. Miyazaki himself praised the film as Takahata's masterpiece, but criticized Seita for not behaving how he believes the son of a navy lieutenant should behave. The film ranked number 12 on Total Films 50 greatest animated films. It was also ranked at number 10 in Time Outs "The 50 greatest World War II movies" list. Empire magazine ranked the film at number 6 in its list of "The Top 10 Depressing Movies". The film ranked number 19 on Wizard's Anime Magazine on their "Top 50 Anime released in North America". The Daily Star, ranking the film 4th on its list of greatest short story adaptations, wrote that "There is both much and little to say about the film. It is simply an experience—a trip through the lonely boroughs of humanity that the world collectively looked, and still looks, away from". Theron Martin of Anime News Network said that, in terms of the original U. S. Manga Corps dub, while the other voices were "perfectly acceptable", "Setsuko just doesn't sound quite convincing as a four year old in English. That, unfortunately, is a big negative, since a good chunk of the pathos the movie delivers is at least partly dependent on that performance". Before that, the ranking website Goo's readers voted the film's ending the number 1 most miserable of all anime films. In June 2018, USA Today ranked it 1st on the 100 best animated movies of all time. Well known film director and critic 水野晴郎 reviewed Grave of the Fireflies on his popular TV series. He praised the film for the honorary image of the soldiers of Japan through the depiction of the fireflies, and the moving depiction of a heartbreaking experience many people of Japan had lived through. After seeing the reactions of the audience after a screening of the film at Festival « Pour éveiller les regards », Jean Jacques Varret, head of Les Films du Paradoxe, knew he had to distribute it in France. It was released in two Parisian arthouses and the reaction was modest. Following the release however, Les Films du Paradoxe chose to release the film on video cassettes and on the streaming service Canal+.

After the international release, it has been noted that different audiences have interpreted the film differently due to differences in culture. For instance, when the film was watched by a Japanese audience, Seita's decision to not come back to his aunt was seen as an understandable decision, as they were able to understand how Seita had been raised to value pride in himself and his country. Conversely, American and Australian audiences were more likely to perceive the decision as unwise.

Following the success of Grave of the Fireflies, Takahata drew up an outline for a follow up film, based on similar themes but set in 1939 at the start of the second World War. This film was called Border 1939, based on the novel The Border by Shin Shikata, and would have told the story of a Japanese teenager from colonial Seoul joining an anti Japanese resistance group in Mongolia. The film was intended as an indictment of Japanese imperialist sentiment, which is briefly touched upon in Grave of the Fireflies. Although Takahata finished a full outline (which is republished in his book Thoughts While Making Movies), the film was canceled before production could start due to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Public opinion in Japan had turned against China, and Ghibli's distributor felt a film partly set there was too risky.

NTV in Japan produced a live action TV drama of Grave of the Fireflies, in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. The drama aired on 1 November 2005. Like the anime, the live action version of Grave of the Fireflies focuses on two siblings struggling to survive the final months of the war in Kobe, Japan. Unlike the animated version, it tells the story from the point of view of their cousin (the aunt's daughter) and deals with the issue of how the war time environment could change a kind lady into a hard hearted woman. It stars Nanako Matsushima as the aunt, as well as Mao Inoue as their cousin.

A different live action version was released in Japan on 5 July 2008, 吉武怜朗 as Seita, 畠山あやな as Setsuko, Keiko Matsuzaka as the aunt, and Seiko Matsuda as the children's mother. Like the anime, this live action version of Grave of the Fireflies focuses on two siblings struggling to survive the final months of the war in Kobe, Japan.