Heartbreak in Animation: A Reflective Journey Through “Grave of the Fireflies”

Plot Summary:

Directed by Isao Takahata and written by Akiyuki Nosaka, Grave of the Fireflies focuses on the lives of 14-year-old Seita and his 4-year-old younger sister, Setsuko, during the aftermath of World War II. The story starts off with showing a dying Seita, who no longer has his sister with him. He, and several other malnourished children, are at a train station, where he is insulted by the incoming passerby. While most ignore him, a woman gives him an onigiri; although, he is too weak to eat it. After the cleanup worker affirms that Seita is dead, he takes the metal candy canister from his body and throws it outside the station. From there, Seita’s ghost who is in full uniform appears with Setsuko and turns back time to show the audience what happened before he reached this state.

The first scene in the past shows Seita burying food and valuables underground due to the air raids. He urges his mother to seek shelter and reminds her of the heart medicine. Seita finishes burying the valuables and then grabs several other mementos from the house while taking Setsuko with him. While he is escaping the house, the air raid begins and burns down all of the surrounding houses with firebombs. He manages to find a safe space for him and his sister; although, the aftermath of the air raid leaves the entire town burned to the ground. After seeing the destruction, a messenger arrives telling them to receive first aid at the elementary school. There, he finds his mother severely burned and dying. He reunites also with one of his mother’s friends who watches Setsuko for him while he meets his mother before she passes away. He watches her body burn in the pile of corpses.  

Seita and Setsuko manage to reach his aunt’s house in another town and is hesitantly welcomed. His aunt’s attitude toward them negatively changes after she finds out that the children’s mother died and that their father cannot be reached through letter mail. The following sequences show the aunt’s awful treatment of her brother’s children. She feeds them rice porridge while her husband and daughter have onigiri. Likewise, she sells their mother’s kimonos to buy rice and takes a lot for herself. She constantly makes snide comments about how nice it is for them to have a father in the navy and how they are a burden to her family. Eventually, she tells them it would be better for them to leave and live in the nearby rundown air raid bomb shelter.  

After going to the bank, Seita finds out that his mother has 7,000 yen in the bank and withdraws some of the money to buy a stove, rice, and other goods. They put up with the aunt for a while, and then Seita decides to leave with Setsuko with little pushback from their aunt. They move into the shelter and try as much as possible to make it by with little food and goods. They play and scavenge for food while watching the fireflies. Much time passes after Seita and Setsuko move into the shelter, and Setsuko is plagued with severe malnutrition. Eventually, Setsuko dies. Seita cremates her body with a bunch of her toys and the metal candy canister. At the end, a sequence of scenes occurs with Setsuko at the shelter happy and alive. And then, Seita is shown also severely malnourished, giving up on life. The final scene shows both of their ghosts staring off into the modern Japan on a faraway bench.  

Personal Thoughts:

The primary theme throughout this film is the manifestation of the author’s, Akiyuki Nosaka’s, guilt toward his deceased younger sister during World War II. As described in this week’s presentation, Nosaka had a 16-month-old baby sister who passed away under his care due to malnourishment. Infants require a lot of food, and Nosaka was unable to provide her with the necessary nourishment, care, and affection that she needed. This story, Grave of the Fireflies, reflects this deep regret that he has held in his heart all of these years (even up until his death in 2015).  

Although this is a semi-biography regarding Nosaka’s life and how he blames himself for his baby sister’s death, the Seita that is presented in this film is not the only one to blame. Seita is only a 14-year-old child who thought out of stubbornness that he could survive without external help after all of the events occurred in his aunt’s house.  

The aunt, while not blamed, is in many ways to blame for both of the children’s deaths. Even if the aunt felt like they were a burden, she never should have voiced those opinions. Her scathing words were the main reason that he decided to leave in the first place. Her obvious physical and emotional maltreatment of the children was a big factor in their eventual deaths. She was an adult and needed to have taken responsibility for her family, even extended family with open arms. For a society that prides itself on collectivity and familial responsibility, this character revealed a nastier side. She essentially sent the children off to die by not stopping them.

One of the other smaller but prevalent themes was the apathy of the passerby at the beginning of the story and the general reactions toward the suffering people during the war. The nicely-dressed passerby and the “working peoples” like the aunt’s husband and daughter were seen as more valuable and better than people who did not work (even though Seita and Setsuko were mere children). It seems as though those who were severely affected postwar were looked down on and not given any sympathy.  

Overall, this movie was a harrowing take on Akiyuki Nosaka’s life that not only expresses his deep regrets but also the state of postwar Japan—apathetic toward the people affected and eager to forget about all of the suffering.