Grave of the Fireflies (????? Hotaru no Haka) is a 1988 Japanese animated war film based on the 1967 semi-autobiographical short story of the same name by Akiyuki Nosaka. It was written and directed by Isao Takahata, and animated by Studio Ghibli for the story's publisher Shinchosha Publishing (making it the only Studio Ghibli film under Tokuma Shoten ownership that had no involvement from them). The film stars Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, Yoshiko Shinohara and Akemi Yamaguchi. Set in the city of Kobe, Japan, the film tells the story of two siblings, Seita and Setsuko, and their desperate struggle to survive during the final months of the Second World War.
Grave of the Fireflies | |
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Japanese cinema poster for Grave of the Fireflies | |
Japanese | ????? |
Hepburn | Hotaru no Haka |
Directed by | Isao Takahata |
Produced by | Toru Hara |
Screenplay by | Isao Takahata |
Based on | Grave of the Fireflies by Akiyuki Nosaka |
Starring |
|
Music by | Michio Mamiya |
Cinematography | Nobuo Koyama |
Edited by | Takeshi Seyama |
Production companies | Studio Ghibli |
Distributed by | Toho |
Release date |
|
Running time | 89 minutes |
Country | Japan |
Language | Japanese |
Box office | $5 million |
Screenplay
On 21 September 1945, shortly after the end of World War II, Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a teenage boy, Seita, dies of starvation in a Kobe train station. A janitor sorts through his possessions and finds a candy tin, which he throws into a field. The spirit of Seita's younger sister, Setsuko, springs from the tin and is joined by Seita's spirit and a cloud of fireflies. They board a train.
Some months earlier, Seita and Setsuko's house is destroyed in a firebombing along with most of Kobe. They are unharmed, but their mother dies from burns. Seita and Setsuko move in with a distant aunt, who convinces Seita to sell his mother's kimonos for rice. Seita retrieves supplies he buried before the bombing and gives everything to his aunt but a tin of Sakuma drops. As rations shrink and the number of refugees in the house grows, the aunt becomes resentful of the children, saying they do nothing to earn the food she prepares.
Seita and Setsuko leave and move into an abandoned bomb shelter. They release fireflies into the shelter for light. The next day, Setsuko is horrified to find that the insects have died. She buries them in a grave, asking why they and her mother had to die. As they run out of rice, Seita steals from farmers and loots homes during air raids, for which he is beaten. When Setsuko falls ill, Seita takes her to a doctor, who explains that she is suffering from malnutrition.
In a panic, Seita withdraws all the money in their mother's bank account. As he leaves the bank, he becomes distraught when he learns that Japan has surrendered. He also learns that his father, a captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy, is probably dead, as most of Japan's navy has been sunk.
Seita returns to the shelter with a large quantity of food, but finds Setsuko hallucinating. He hurries to feed her, but she dies as he 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.
Seita and Setsuko's deceased spirits arrive at their destination, healthy and happy, and sit on a bench surrounded by fireflies overlooking present-day Kobe.
Character name | Japanese voice actor | English voice actor (Skypilot Entertainment/CPM, 1998) |
English voice actor (Toho/Seraphim/Sentai, 2012) |
---|---|---|---|
Seita | Tsutomu Tatsumi (?? ? Tatsumi Tsutomu) | J. Robert Spencer | Adam Gibbs |
Setsuko | Ayano Shiraishi (?? ?? Shirashi Ayano) | Rhoda Chrosite | Emily Neves |
Seita and Setsuko's mother | Yoshiko Shinohara (??? ?? Shinohara Yoshiko) | Veronica Taylor | Shelley Calene-Black |
Seita and Setsuko's aunt | Akemi Yamaguchi (?? ?? Yamaguchi Akemi) | Amy Jones | Marcy Bannor |
Development
Grave of the Fireflies author Akiyuki Nosaka said that many offers had been made to create a film version of Grave of the Fireflies. Nosaka argued that "t was impossible to create the barren, scorched earth that's to be the backdrop of the story." He also argued that contemporary children would not be able to convincingly play the characters. Nosaka expressed surprise when an animated version was offered. After seeing the storyboards, Nosaka concluded that it was not possible for such a story to have been made in any method other than animation and expressed surprise in how accurately the rice paddies and townscape were depicted.
Isao Takahata said that he was compelled to film the short story after seeing how the main character, Seita, "was a unique wartime ninth grader." 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. When Nosaka asked if the film characters were "having fun," Takahata answered that he clearly depicted Seita and Setsuko had "substantial" days and that they were "enjoying their days." Takahata said that Setsuko was even more difficult to animate than Seita, and that he had never before depicted a girl younger than five. Takahata said that "n that respect, when you make the book into a movie, Setsuko becomes a tangible person," and said that four-year-olds often become more assertive, self-centered, and try to get their own ways during their ages, and he explained that while one could "have a scene where Seita can't stand that anymore," "that's difficult to incorporate into a story." Takahata explained that the film is from Seita's point of view, "and even objective passages are filtered through his feelings"
Takahata said that he had considered using non-traditional animation methods, but because "the schedule was planned and the movie's release date set, and the staff assembled, it was apparent there was no room for such a trial-and-error approach." He further remarked that he had difficulty animating the scenery since, in Japanese animation, one is "not allowed" to depict Japan in a realistic manner. Animators often traveled to foreign countries to do research on how to depict them, but such research had not been done before for a Japanese setting.
Most of the illustration outlines in the film are in brown, instead of the customary black. Whenever black was used, it was 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." Yasuda explained that brown is more difficult to use than black because it does not contrast as well as black.
Music
The film score was composed by Michio Mamiya. Mamiya is also a music specialist in baroque and classical music. The song Home Sweet Home was performed by coloratura soprano Amelita Galli-Curci.
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, director Takahata repeatedly denied that the film was an anti-war film. In his own words, " 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.
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 lighthearted My Neighbor Totoro as a double feature. The film was modestly successful at the box-office. Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbor Totoro grossed $5 million at the Japanese box office. While the two films were marketed toward children and their parents, the starkly tragic nature of Grave of the Fireflies turned away most 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 distribution rights themselves, thus replacing both the film's original Japanese theatrical distributor, Toho and original Japanese home video distributor, Bandai Visual). It was one of the last Studio Ghibli films to get an English-language premiere by GKIDS.
Home media
Grave of the Fireflies was released in Japan on VHS by Buena Vista Home Entertainment on 7 August 1998. On 29 July 2005, a DVD release was published through Warner Home Video. Walt Disney Home Entertainment (WDHE) released the complete collector's edition DVD on 6 August 2008. WDHE 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 never currently owns the North American but Japanese rights as mentioned).
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 September 1, 1998 (the day Disney released Kiki's Delivery Service) and an all-Regions DVD (which also included the original Japanese with English subtitles) on October 7 the same year. 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 c
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