I rarely write about films — I know that I am an emotional creature at heart, and anything semi-decent (if you would very politely call it so) would be simply an outpour of emotions.

However, after rewatching Grave of the Fireflies, an animated war film produced by Studio Ghibli and initially released in 1988 to little fanfare — with its box office earnings miserable compared to its release sibling, My Neighbour Totoro — I was motivated to jot down how, in so many ways, this animation classic moved and reduced me into a hapless puddle of tears.

Consider yourself warned of spoilers should you proceed beyond this point.

The power of storytelling

The film spent no time in betraying the tragic outcome of the story — Seita, the older brother of the orphaned sibling pair, was depicted lying emaciated, starved and close to the brink of death in a train station terminal.

The film started with a conclusion.
Its arsenal is the art of storytelling.

With the ending of the film laid out bare and free for taking, the film leveraged on a fiercely intimate narrative, namely in the form of a flashback in the eyes of Seita, on the siblings’ journey stretching months before the said scene.

A society’s failure to act

The film also serves as a poignant reminder that wartime is also the time when the society failed to act protect and secure the well-being of the common people. For Seita and Setsuko, despite coming from an upper-middle class military family, has fallen through the safety net of food rations, healthcare, shelter and basic hygiene. When their mother perished from her injuries, they were pretty much left to fend for themselves — their materal relatives based in Tokyo and their father remained uncontactable, while their aunt was cold, calculative and apathetic towards their misery.

While social order in Japan was mostly left intact even towards the end of the Second World War, as illustrated in the film, we see people like Seita’s aunt who took in the orphaned siblings probably over self-serving reasons, such as access to buried food items (pickled plums, fresh butter), exquisite kimonos that could be pawned for food, instead of moral obligations stemming from familial ties.

Suffering is no stranger to the film — in the first 15 minutes of the film, we were treated with scene of the siblings’ mom being badly burnt from shelling, and her maggot-infested body, decomposing in the heat, was taken away on a stretcher and hastily burned with other civilian casualties of war.

Apathy towards the sufferings is apparent and gripping. Even in the weeks shortly after the conclusion of the war, when the society was still in tatters and recovering, nobody paid any heed to the starving protagonist in the train station. Only one stranger left a rice ball by his foot, only to have Seita too emaciated to move to even consume it.

A farmer never hesitated to beat Seita into a bloody pulp, in full sight of his younger sister, Setsuko, despite his previously friendly encounters with Seita who honestly paid up for fresh produce. While the onduty police officer took pity with Seita’s situation, he did not extend any further help than allowing Seita to leave the lookout instead of sending him to prison, despite Seita looking clearly famished and injured.

When the effects of malnutrition started to show on Setsuko, the doctor simply straightforwardly recommended nutrition and offered no further medical care or dietary supplementation, even though either sounds entire plausible within his means.

Good times, defiance and innocence

When Seita and Setsuko still tolerated the selfish antics of their aunt and the inaction of his cousin and uncle despite clear signs of verbal abuses, they enjoyed themselves truly, genuinely and wholeheartedly, even when times were tough. They went to the beach, where Setsuko found great relief from the heat rash as she bathed in the sea.

Depictions of the characters and their life experiences were grounded in reality, allowing the audience to relate and thus sympathize with them. The brilliance of Setsuko’s innocence and the adolescence defiance of Seita have helped us to establish a strong emotional connection to the characters — something that I find challenging when confronted with cardboard, single dimensional and idealized characters in many animated films.

The film imparted me, not just a sense of sadness,
but a profound feeling of grief and guilt

While Toy Story, Up and many other award-winning animated films have managed to elicit the feeling of sadness, Grave of the Fireflies induced a feeling of intense grief within me.

In the first few weeks of living in a bomb shelter which Seita has conveniently converted into a makeshift home, the siblings were not short of resources — with remaining funds, they acquired a stove, dining essentials and cutleries, netting against biting insects, fresh produce and rice. In the night, they would capture fireflies by the dozens and release them in the shelter for light.

This dreamy scenario of living alone and being self-sufficient did not last long, however, when the siblings finally ran out of money.

Nobody is a saint

While characters can be cleanly separated into either camps housing the protagonists and the antagonists, they are no saint either — the film made no attempts at idealization of the characters. Each character has its own redeeming qualities, yet is flawed in ways that are grounded to reality and the context of the storyline.

Seita, the protagonist, was stealing food crops from a local farmer in order to feed his malnourished sister, despite knowing that it is a crime punishable during wartime. Moreover, Seita was raiding homes during town-wide evacuations in the moments of shelling, in order to secure valuables for which he can trade for essential food items.

Seita’s aunt, while being selfish, apathetic and perhaps even greedy in many scenes, still accommodated them during the rough times and did not actively encouraged Seita to leave the home. Despite being depicted as the main antagonist, she still cooked for the siblings and provided shelter — in exchange for taking a cut from the food items Seita’s earthly belongings were traded for.

Loss, futility and fragility

In the short span of a few weeks, the protagonists were unfortunately victims of loss — their mother perishing due to thermal injuries sustained during shelling, losing their home and belongings when their house burned down, voluntarily leaving a safe shelter due to apathy and verbal abuse from their aunt.

The unfortunate and final loss was the death of Setsuko, who finally succumbed to the effects of severe malnutrition. Everything that Seita has done for, was partially motivated by her sister’s cheerful and innocent outlook on life, and his brotherly duty as a caretaker of Setsuko following their parents’ passing.

It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. While I have tried so hard to hold back my tears throughout the film — and to be completely honest, the first 15 minutes would have gotten to me already — this scene disabled every single bit of defense and resistance I had.

The film started off with Seito appearing as an adolescent who seems to have everything handed to him — living in a comfortable home away from the horrors of the war. However, as he started to deal with losses, he transformed from a boy who is reluctant to stand up for himself — such as not helping the town during wartime, and for not rebuking his aunt when he or Setsuko was treated unfairly — into a young man who is strong and independent. He grew to be increasingly capable of caring for his younger sister, albeit through illegal means at times. He finally mustered the courage to move out of his aunt’s home, for him being unwilling to tolerate more of her antics. To him, his life revolved around externalizing the war situation around him, and devoting his time, effort and love to his younger sister.

Setsuko’s death marked the end of Seito’s attachment to reality.

It fell apart following her passing — making the film reminiscent of the common “double suicide” theme found in tragic narratives. Losing Setsuko had a profound effect on Seito, for him losing a goal that he had been working towards all the while since his parents’ departure, and losing an emotional tie and the last bit of wordly attachment to reality. Losing Setsuko effectively terminated his relevance to post-war Japan, with no motivation to continue living and no family members to turn to. The only way out, was to reunite with Setsuko on the other side.

What I find extremely heart-wrenching is the futility of Seito and Setsuko’s struggle against adversity — despite their best efforts to stay alive, comfortable and happy, they succumbed to indifference and were reduced to nothing but just a statistic in wartime civilian loss in the end of the film. When Setsuko took her last breath, and when Seito mumbled his last words of regret, we were reminded of the happy, innocent times they shared , as well as the struggles and hardships they faced together — when Seito let loose an air bubble in Setsuko’s face during bathtime, when Setsuko made imaginary meals from dirt to stave off the hunger. The film is a testament to their spiritual, emotional and concomitant growth transcending the boundaries of siblings.

Closing remarks

The last time I watched Grave of the Fireflies was years ago — and it wasn’t until yesterday that I have decided to rewatch the film in greater detail and devoting extra attention to the narrative. Being active on Medium lately, I thought my repertoire of works could benefit from a more personal story of my appreciation of the arts.

And yes, if you’re wondering, I still cried at the end.