Grave of Fireflies

A scene from Grave for Fireflies. [Photo/Mtime]

Grave for Fireflies is a 1988 Japanese animated drama film written and directed by Isao Takahata. 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.

Seita and Setsuko are brother and sister living in wartime Japan. After their mother is killed in an air raid they find a temporary home with relatives. Having quarreled with their aunt they leave the city and make their home in an abandoned shelter. While their soldier father's destiny is unknown, the two must depend on each other to somehow keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs.

When everything is in short supply, they gradually succumb to hunger and their only entertainment is the light of the fireflies. After Setsuko is diagnosed with serious malnutrition, Seita withdraws all the money remaining in their mother's bank account to buy food. He returns only to find a dying Setsuko hallucinating. Seita hurries to cook, but Setsko dies soon after. Seita cremates Setsuko's body, and puts her ashes in the fruit tin, which he carries along with his father's photograph, until his death from malnutrition in Sannomiya Station a few weeks later.

The film received nearly universal acclaim from film critics and won the Blue Ribbon Awards for Special Award in 1984. Rotten Tomatoes, American film review aggregator website, offers this consensus: "An achingly sad anti-war film, Grave of the Fireflies is one of Studio Ghibli's most profoundly beautiful, haunting works".