“That was the night I died,” says 14-year-old Seita as Grave of the Fireflies opens.
He’s not speaking metaphorically.
As Seita’s spirit observes his physical death in a lonely train station, surrounded by the bodies of other children who have died of starvation, he reflects on the events that led him to this place.
It is, as you might imagine, a tragic tale.
World War II has ravaged Japan, with Allied firebombing and food shortages taking their toll on the population. In the waning days of the war, one such attack killed Seita’s mother, effectively orphaning him and his 4-year-old sister, Setsuko.
With their mother dead and their home destroyed (along with most of the rest of Kobe, Japan), Seita and Setsuko scratch and claw for survival—and try to find some semblance of hope in their shattered world.
What follows is a story that is equal parts beautiful and terrifying, hopeful and heartrending. Be warned: Seita and Setsuko’s journey is not for the faint of heart.
Seita and Setsuko’s love for each other forms the emotional core of Grave of the Fireflies. Most of the decisions Seita makes are with his little sister in mind; he’s determined to keep her safe despite the devastation and desperation that surround them. Accordingly, he constantly tries to shield his little sister from the horrors of war. Setsuko is very young, but it’s clear she adores her brother and helps whenever she can.
Despite their dire circumstances, Seita and Setsuko share genuine moments of happiness and even contentment, playing on the beach and making a home out of an air raid shelter.
After their mother is killed, a young woman (seemingly a family friend) helps the young siblings. Eventually, the children’s distant aunt takes them in (though this generosity soon wears thin, unfortunately). When Seita becomes desperate and resorts to stealing food to survive, a policeman graciously shows him leniency—it’s clear the man has some idea what the boy is going through.
What little we see of the children’s upbringing before the firebombing of Kobe seems happy. A farmer offers wise (though difficult) counsel. Someone offers food to a malnourished child. People act bravely, putting out fires during air raids.
As stated above, Seita’s spirit watches the past events of his life unfold. Eventually, another spirit joins him in the afterlife.
A merchant advises someone to perform a cremation of a child at a (presumably Buddhist) temple. Someone refers to a typhoon as a “divine wind.”
During an air raid, a Japanese soldier shouts, “Long live the emperor!” It must be noted that at this time, a common belief held by the Japanese people was that their emperor was the incarnation of a deity.
We see some brief nudity in the film, but not in a sexual context.
Seito and Setsuko share a bath and we see their bare torsos. At the beach, Seita removes his shirt before stepping into the ocean and Setsuko strips down to her undergarment (which looks like a diaper). During a flashback, Seita swims and stands on a beach in a traditional Japanese undergarment that shows some of his backside.
When Setsuko pulls up her pants after relieving herself, we briefly glimpse her rear. Later, she runs around naked while playing with a large sheet.
While Grave of the Fireflies is not gratuitous, it is unflinching in its portrayal of the human cost of war. In particular, the children’s mother is badly burned during the Kobe firebombing. When Seita sees her mom in the hospital, her upper half is covered in bloody bandaging and her skin is purple and cracked. When Seita sees her again, she has died, and her body is covered with maggots. She is taken away to be cremated with others who have perished.
Air raid sirens blare throughout the film. People run for cover. Allied airplanes drop firebombs and shoot at civilians. Fires blaze and spread throughout Kobe, seemingly engulfing the whole city. We see corpses lying amid the flames. Later, we see charred bodies among the wreckage. A bandaged corpse is tossed into a pile of the dead. Setsuko stumbles across a dead body on a beach, but Seita is quick to distract her.
Seita imitates shooting a machine gun. He says his father (a naval officer) will make the Americans pay for the destruction they’ve caused. Speaking of his father, when Seita learns near the end of the film that Japan has surrendered and most of their fleet has been sunk, he assumes his father is dead as well.
A farmer beats a child for stealing from his crop. Later, we see the child’s bruises. Another man shoves a kid to the ground.
Children are malnourished and starving. We see their emaciated bodies as they grow sicker and weaker. One person has painful sores all over her back.
[Spoiler Warning] Eventually, despite Seita’s best efforts, Setsuko dies from starvation. We see him cradle his little sister’s lifeless body. Seita cremates her and places her ashes in a small tin that he carries with him.
Three uses of “d–n,” including one pairing with God’s name. God’s name is abused once more. “H—” is used once. Starving people (including children) are called “tramps” and “bums.”
A farmer smokes a slender pipe. People collect seawater in bottles that look like they might have originally been used for the Japanese alcoholic beverage sake.
A distant aunt takes Seita and Setsuko into her home after their mother dies. However, the aunt makes her home a miserable place for the children to live. She complains about them constantly, often criticizing Seita for being lazy and not contributing. (It’s unclear what she wants him to do, and Seita informs her that the factory he worked in was bombed and that his school has burned down.)
Their aunt also takes advantage of the children, convincing them to trade their deceased mother’s kimonos for rice and then using much of that rice to feed her immediate family, not Seita and Setsuko. That mistreatment, among other slights, drives the children to leave and form a makeshift home in an air raid shelter—which exposes them to the elements.
In an effort to protect his little sister’s innocence, Seita lies to Setsuko frequently. He withholds the fact that their mother died, instead saying that’s she’s recovering in the hospital. When Seita learns that their aunt told Setsuko that their mother is dead, he spins a fiction that she is buried in a beautiful graveyard instead of telling her the truth: that her body was burned, and her ashes were given to Seita in a simple, wooden box.
As food becomes scarce, Seita is driven to steal from local farmers to feed himself and his sister. He also takes to robbing homes during Allied air raids. He then tries to barter these stolen goods for food.
Many people are indifferent to the children’s plight, offering little help, if any at all. A doctor does the bare minimum to help a sick child. Another man comments absently about the weather when talking to someone grieving a loss.
Characters talk about needing to “pee.” Oftentimes, this means they must relieve themselves near a bush or in the woods due to their town’s destruction. We hear one symptom of a character’s malnourishment is diarrhea.
One night, after Seita and Setsuko leave their aunt and move into the air raid shelter, they bring a whole host of fireflies into their makeshift home. The fireflies light up the darkness. The children bask in the warm, hopeful glow.
But by the next day, the fireflies have all died, and hope has faded. As Setsuko fashions a grave for the once-glowing insects, she asks, “Why do fireflies have to die so soon?”
You may find yourself asking a similar question when watching Grave of the Fireflies. There are many tender, wonderful moments in this film—full of love, selflessness, joy, and even hope. But in the face of the grim consequences of war, they are as fleeting as the glow of fireflies.
Make no mistake: This is a beautiful, moving film (now streaming on Netflix). But it’s also quite difficult. It grapples with the human cost of war, made all the more challenging by the fact its protagonists are children.
Based on Akiyuki Nosaka’s semi-autobiographical short story and brought to life by the acclaimed Studio Ghibli, Grave of the Fireflies pulls no punches. It doesn’t revel in the sad tale it tells, but it’s not interested in giving us a cathartic release, either. It’s a portrait of Japan’s past, a story of powerful love and great loss.
This may be an animated movie about children, but it’s not a children’s movie. (Personally, I would hesitate to show it to anyone younger than a teenager due to its heavy themes.) It’s a war film, through and through, and one of considerable depth and beauty.
But there’s a lot of sorrow here, too.
Bret loves a good story—be it a movie, show, or video game—and enjoys geeking out about things like plot and story structure. He has a blast reading and writing fiction and has penned several short stories and screenplays. He and his wife love to kayak the many beautiful Colorado lakes with their dog.
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