Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no haka)

Released 1988
Animated
Voices Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, Yoshiko Shinohara, Akemi Yamaguchi
Directed by Isao Takahata

In the waning days of World War II, American bombers drop napalm canisters on Japanese cities, creating fire storms. "Grave of the Fireflies" (1988) is an animated film telling the story of two children from the port city of Kobe, made homeless by the bombs. Seita is a young teenager, and his sister Setsuko is about 5. Their father is serving in the Japanese navy, and their mother is a bomb victim; Seita kneels beside her body, covered with burns, in an emergency hospital. Their home, neighbors, schools are all gone. For a time an aunt takes them in, but she's cruel about the need to feed them, and eventually Seita finds a hillside cave where they can live. He does what he can to find food, and to answer Setsuko's questions about their parents. The first shot of the film shows Seita dead in a subway station, and so we can guess Setsuko's fate; we are accompanied through flashbacks by the boy's spirit.

It's based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Nosaka Akiyuki--who was a boy at the time of the firebombs, whose sister did die of hunger and whose life has been shadowed by guilt. Fukushima cites an interview with the author: "Having been the sole survivor, he felt guilty for the death of his sister. While scrounging for food, he had often fed himself first, and his sister second. Her undeniable cause of death was hunger, and it was a sad fact that would haunt Nosaka for years. It prompted him to write about the experience, in hopes of purging the demons tormenting him."

Because it is animated and from Japan, "Grave of the Fireflies" has been little seen. When anime fans say how good the film is, nobody takes them seriously. Now that it's available on DVD with a choice of subtitles or English dubbing, maybe it will find the attention it deserves. 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.

Summary by Roger Ebert

What a devastating film. It's a very personal story, and it seems to be the author's attempt to tell his heart-breaking story in the way he wished it had happened while remaining powerless to change his baby sister's fate. I'm just speculating, but I doubt he was as kind and loving to his sister as he is in this film. He was too young to be placed into that position to be able to handle it as steadfastly as Seita does. I may be wrong, but it seems to be a love poem to a beautiful child, whose death has torn at him for his entire life. While he's powerless to change Setsuko's fate, he chooses to change his own. Instead of surviving, the film opens with his death. In many ways he did die, and I'm sure not a day has gone by that he's felt he should have traded places with his sister. 

It reminded me of a story told by a Vietnamese woman in the film Regret to Inform. She was about the same age as Seita, and she chose to steal her friend's tiny food rations because her friend was seriously injured and dying. She tells us through her tears that no child should have to decide to let someone else die so that they may live. She too has had to live with this horrible guilt, and there's no amount of rationalization that could ever ease this burden. --Bill Alward, July 1, 2001

P.S. I recommend watching it in Japanese with English subtitles, because the Japanese voices find the correct emotional pitch. It seems the actors who dubbed the English dialogue didn't watch the film beforehand. They are much too happy-go-lucky, and they mute the emotional impact.