Grave of the Fireflies

Grave of the Fireflies

It is late in the Second World War, and there is a young boy sitting on the floor of a train station. He faints, then dies. The janitors, while cleaning, point out the dead, and approach the young boy. One of the janitors take a tin container from the boy's pocket, the container, supposedly for fruit candy. But when he opens it and finds an ashy substance. Not knowing what to make of it, he pitches it outside into a field. Startled by the container, a swarm of fireflies rise from the grass, and the small spririt of the boy and his sister appear among the insects, and their story is told.

The story depicts the hardships that many people had to live through to try and survive the war. In this movie, you "re-live" the lives of two young children, Seita, and Setsuko who are 14 and 4 years old respectively. The re-telling of the story begins with the bombing of their town, Kobe. From then on, you see how the two of them have to deal with often cruel and hard times.

The movie was based on the novel, "Hotaru no Haka" written by: Nosaka Akiyuki, published by Shinchosha. The novel is semi-autobiographical in that he lost his little sister during the war due to malnutrition. He blamed himself for her death for a long time, and wrote the novel to come to terms with the loss.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact me. Also, I have not been able to find the book for sale on the INTERNET. If you do know where I could find the book, please email me at:

tuxedo_ramen@hotmail.com

Thanks

Original Story: Akiyuki Nosaka
Production Design: Ryoichi Sato
Screenplay by and Director: Isao Takahata
Character Design: Yoshifumi Kondo
Art Director: Nizo Yamamoto
Š1988 Akiyuki Nosaka/Shinchosha Co.
1 hour, 22 minutes.

HOTARU NO HAKA IMAGE ALBUM SHUU
(Grave of the Fireflies Image Album)
Soundtrack
-Original compositions based on the themes created by "images" from the movie, often composed before the movie was made. Usually, some of the pieces are eventually made into a soundtrack piece, but often, there are some that are not used for the film.

There is another version available, it has the same songs from it, however, there are samples from the movie during the songs. Samples of what Setsuko or Seita may have said during the movie.

You can order the CD soundtrack, video, or DVD at these locations.

Anime Otaku
Anime Nation
Central Park Media
Nikaku Animart

The fact that this film is animated does not take away from the realism of the film. As the film progresses you forget that you're watching an animated movie, and are submerged into a live action documentary.

The drama is real, and there isn't any trace of that "Disney" formula crap. The drawings are well done. The characters have their usual Japanimation charm, and the scenery, building and vehicle details are almost photorealistic, further adding to your experience.

All raves here. No rants at all. Even the subtitles were easy to read. The letterbox format allowed the text to be added on one of the black bars at the bottom of the screen making the subtitles clear enough to read.

A lot of powerful, touching images, keep an eye out for them. Turning away from this movie for an instant would be a risk in missing one of these images. These are images that stay with you.