  I had been meaning to watch 'Grave of the Fireflies' for a long time, and recently I finally got around to doing so. I'm both happy and sad that I did. Let's just say that 'Grave of the Fireflies' is one fooked up movie. *** Spoiler Alert *** I'm about to reveal the ending and much of the plot of this movie. Granted, it isn't much of a spoiler in this case, since the end is more or less given away within the first five minutes of the movie. It's just like "American Beauty,' in which the main character clearly states that he's dead before the movie is through. Anyhoos... The movie is based on the book Hotaru no Haka by Akiyuki Nosaka. It (the book, not necessarily the anime) is a semi-autobiographical account of Nosaka's childhood in Japan towards the end of World War II.
The setting should've given me fair warning that this wasn't going to be a happy happy sunshine movie, but like an idiot I watched it through anyway in hopes of a good time. The story outlines the struggles of Seita and his 4-year old sister Setsuko. In the beginning of the movie, we see their home town firebombed by US forces. Seita, with Setsuko strapped firmly to his back, runs frantically through the streets whilst dodging large chunks of what look to be burning, red-hot metal. He makes it to the bomb shelter without a wound to either himself or his sister, but their home, as well as the homes of their neighbors, have all been burned to ash. To make matters worse, their mom dies in the attack. And their father is an officer in the Japanese navy. So within the first 15 minutes, we see that the likable Seita and the adorable Setsuko have been orphaned (the father's death isn't confirmed until the end, but it doesn't take a much to guess that). So Seita and Setsuko go to live with a distant relative, who's a real bitch to them. Seita had just seen a loved one die slowly after suffering severe burns, and the two of them had just seen their childhood home burned to the ground, and yet the relative they were stuck with couldn't find it in her heart to treat them kindly. Things just go down hill from there, believe it or not. After being fed up with the relative, Seita hatches up a plan to live in an abandoned shelter.
He takes Setsuko, moves all their stuff out of their aunt's place, and they just set up shop in a swamp-side cave. They do just fine for a little while. But soon they run out of food, and they have to resort to theft and foraging through the wilderness to survive. When Setsuko's health inevitably deteriorates, Seita pleads for help from the local doctors and farmers, but they prove to be appaulingly apathetic to their plight. Eventually, Setsuko dies of malnutrition. I figure there's a lesson to be learned here. Maybe something that has to do with pride, 'cause Seita could have averted his sister's death if he had only sucked up his pride and endured his distant aunt's constant verbal abuse. But he didn't. He chose living in a swamp cave over getting tongue-lashed by an old hag, and because of it both he and his sister died of starvation.
Maybe it's a metaphor for what Japan suffered at the end of WWII. With its allies defeated, Japan refused to surrender. It took the massacre of the country's innocents to persuade its leaders to finally call it quits. So maybe Setsuko was, in one way or another, a representation of all the innocents that died needlessly in the name of war and pride. But whatever the reasoning is behind this ending, the movie is a real heart breaker. I guess, in the end, I'm glad I watched it.
But man, next time I want to watch an anime, it'll have to be anime porn or something by Miyazaki. Speaking of which, here's a bit of random trivia. When 'Grave of the Fireflies' was first released in Japan, it came as part of a double feature. The second feature was none other than 'My Neighbor Totoro' by Miyazaki. It's kinda like taking your kids to the theater to watch a double feature with 'Shrek 2' immediately followed by 'The Passion of the Christ.
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