Graves of the Fireflies
Grave of the Fireflies, directed by Isao Takahata, and produced by Studio Ghibli, is a Japanese animation film portraying the tragic affects of the second word war on a 14 year old boy, Seita, who is forced to take full responsibility of caring and providing for his four year old sister, Setsuko. The film was directed towards children and their parents but due to its harsh and sad nature turned many away from approving it upon release. Despite its controversy, It still was able to gross $5 million in the Japanese box office and rank #12 on Total Film's 50 greatest animated films list. For those that review movies on Rotten Tomatoes it reported a 97% based on 36 reviews, meaning its average rating is a 9.1 out of 10. Critiques on the website described the film as "An achingly sad anti-war film, Grave of the Fireflies is one of Studio Ghibli's most profoundly beautiful, haunting works”(Rotten Tomatoes). The movie begins with the foreshadowing the death of young Seita, in a Kobe train station. The film then cuts to when the two sibling’s journey first begins. Seita and Setsuko’s lived in Kobe japan in 1945, their father is a general in the Japans navy and was off fighting in the war, while they stayed with their mother. Their house along with the rest of Kobe is attacked by American B-29 bombers who burned 21% of Kobe's urban area including their house. Fortunately the two protagonist where unharmed but the bombings left their mother severally burned and unable to survive. The two refuge in their aunt’s house and Seita retrieves food and supplies he buried before the bombing, giving everything to his aunt except a tin of Sakuma drops which reoccurs multiple times thought the film. As the limited amount of food and supplies stink, the aunt becomes more and more resentful towards the two. Commenting that they are useless and do nothing do earn the food she prepares for them. Seita thinking these claims are unfair, leave with his sister and find new shelter in a abandoned bomb shelter. Here the two struggle to survive and there food supply quickly diminishes. This forces Seita to steal from farmers and loot homes during air raids. Setsuko gets sick, and asks Seita to take her to the doctor, who tells them that she is malnourished. Days pass and Setsuko does not get any better. When Seita finally returns to the shelter with real food but find Setsuko hallucinating and with a marble in her mouth. Seita desperately tries to feed her but she is to weak to chew, moments later she passes away. The final scenes cut to Seita cremating Setsuko with her doll and putting them in the tin of Sakuma drops. The film ends with their two spirits finally being healthy and happy looking over present day Kobe. Isao Takahata’s , Grave of the Fireflies, is based his real experiences as a young boy during war time Japan. This allowed him to accurately display themes of death, scarcity, nationalism and victims and the loyalty and sacrifice within families.
One of the major theme in the Grave of the Fireflies, is the imagery of death. Through out the course of the film it seems like Seita and Sakuma can escape the harsh reality of millions of death, despite all the happy care free moments they share. There are multiple scenes that portray this, the first being the death of their mother. After the first bombing on Kobe, Seita and Sakuma make their way to towns middle school in hope to find their mother. When they arrive and family friend approaches the two and tells Seita that his mother is injured. Seita quickly runs into the school where he asks the nurse about his mothers condition. Before bring Seita to his mother, the nurse takes out a ring and asks if it belongs to his mother. This ring is the only object that they get to remember her by. The nurse leading Seita into a room where he sees his mothers unrecognizable body severally burned and wrapped in bandages from head to toe. Sadly, Seita first encounter with death is tragically the death of his own mother. Another scene where the theme of death oquierse is when Seita and Setsuko are having fun while bathing themselves at the beach. This pure and beautiful scene is interrupted when Setsuko notices a body under a thin sheet of bamboo. The element of a fly buzzing around the feet of the body symbolizes that the body is dead. The recurrence of death is not an intentional theme, rather Takahata was trying to accurately portray the reality that he experience durning the time. Never the less the presence of death is to great in the film for it not be a major theme. During World War II the allied bombing campaign on Japan was responsible for more death and destruction than the atomic bombs. In March 1945, 300 Allied B-29 bomber planes dropped two tons of napalm fire on a industrial center in Tokyo. This resulted in 15 square miles of the city getting completely destroyed. compared to the island of manhattan, which is around 23 square miles. Typically these industrial centers are around urban areas housing thousands of middle class families. In the first six hours of the bombings 100,000 civilians were killed. Three more bombings acquired in that month alone. Then on August 6, 1945 the historic events of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Flattening the entire city and leaving another 80,000 civilians dead. Only 72 hours later, another one was dropped on Nagasaki murdering 40,000 people instantly.
Another theme that is continually present throughout the duration of the film is the scarcity among the Japanese populations. The element of scarcity is introduced relatively early. It is first seen when Seita and Setsuko are staying with their aunt. The aunt becomes more resentful the longer the two stay because of the increase of refugees and the decrease of food in the house. She makes comments saying that everyone should be working to support the war effort and that Seita should join the labour force to earn his stay. She sells their mothers dresses for food but only gives Seita and Setsuko very little telling them they have not learned it. Seita, not understanding this leaves to find new shelter. The theme of scarcity ocuires not much later in the story when the two run out of their mothers money. Seita starts to steal crops from farmers, where is eventually caught, beat up, and brought into the police station. He also start lotting peoples homes during air raids. These scenes show the extreme nature that Seita is willing to do to provide for his sister. When Seita returns to the shelter Setsuko tells him that she has been feeling ill. In hopes to save her health Seita takes her to a doctor but coldly tells him that death is inevitable, she only needs food and that medicine is not necessary. The doctor could have help them, but like everyone else has his own problems to worry about. Once again Takahata did not intend for the poverty and scares living condition to be a major theme in the movie. But in the eyes of audience and critics scarcity is a major recurring theme. In 1940, Japan established a rationing system on food. Vegetable, sugar, dairy fish, and rice were all limited. These rations only allowed adults to buy 1.3 to 1.8 ounces of meat a day. During the war Japan’s food production declined by around 26% because of the government shutting their priorities and resources to the war effort. This caused farmers to have less materials to produce food for communities, along with addition distortion of these farms from bombing. Then in 1945, adults were restricted to eating 1,793 calories a day. These limitations were problematic in major cities, such as Tokyo, Kobe, Yokohama, and Nagoya.
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The message that Takahata intended to present in Grave of the Fireflies was the relationship that Seita and Setsuko shared. With the absence of their parents, Setsuko has to rely on Seita to take care of her. This means the Seita has to take on the responsibility of providing food and care for her along with taking care of himself. Even though that Setsuko is saddened by the passing of her mother she finds comfort by Seita taking care of her. The bond between them only gets stronger when they face more hardship. The scene that expresses the most amount of love the two have for each other is also the most heart breaking. After Seita learns that the war ended he manages to retrieve actual food and returns to the shelter to feed Setsuko. Sadly he finds her laying on the ground, chewing on a marble and looking very pale and weak. Seita attempts to feed her watermelon but she is to tired to eat it her self. She falls asleep and never wakes up, Her last words being, “Seita, thank you.” Even when Setsuko is on the cusp of death she still shows, innocence, kindness, and great fullness towards Setsuko. The marbel that she was chewing can be a representation of the fruit drops, reminding her of a happier times.
Many people believe that Grave of the Fireflies is one of the greatest anti-war films of all time but director Isao Takahata ensures people in interviews that it is not. There are no deliberate anti-war messages in the story. The audience is thrown in to the film during the Japanese home front, not montioning anything about the allied forces or events in the war. Takahata beleivres that these details are irrelevant to the story of a adapting and changing Japanese society. He does not depict the Allie forces as the antagonist neither does he portray Japan as a helpless, two things that are very unordinary if this was a anti-war film. There is a scene where Seita embraces the war, idolizing his father who is in the Japanese Navy and in a certain scene imagines that he is on fighting on the battle field.