Anime: Hotaru no Haka

Review
World War II. Japan. A young boy dies in the streets of a busy city, not by bombing, not by enemy soldiers. He dies of hunger and thirst, of grief and despair. This boy has a tale though, a string of events that led him to this fate, and it is this tale you are about to watch. If you think his fate was the saddest part of it, be ready for what is to come, as young Seita and Setsuko will make you cheer and cry as their tale unfolds.

Hotaru no Haka (Grave of the Fireflies) sits amongst one of the most heartbreaking movies ever made. This tale, crafted by the guys behind the notorious Studio Ghibli, is an effort to show horrors of war that can pass unseen, horrors where no heroism can be found, no patriotism can make them worth it, and no dream can justify. As young Seita and his little sister Setsuko lose their family in a bombing, you start to see there is little hope for them, especially when the world can be so damn brutal and people can be so terribly disgusting.

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1. Seita and Setsuko
   Grave of the Fireflies goes around these two kids in their struggle to survive in a Japan devastated by the World War II closure. This focus on these two siblings and not the war itself is the key element to make you fall in love with the cheerful and childish Setsuko as well as the hardworking and responsible Seita. As many other of Studio Ghibli's finest characters, they can evoke multiple emotions on you every time they are on the screen, however...
   
   This is not your average Studio Ghibli though
   Considering how magical many of the studio's masterpieces are, Grave of the Firefly is perhaps the most grounded, solid, and realistic experience of those. Instead of giving form to the children's imaginations such as what happened in later movies as Totoro and Spirited Away, or using a world of unnatural creatures and places such as Laputa and Nausicaa, here there is no magic whatsoever. Only real struggle and a conclusion you don't want to see, especially when both characters try so hard to survive in a world that hates them for the most banal reasons. You watch them thrive and fail as people around them act as humans do: being stupid egoistic creatures. It's hard to accept that, and Grave of the Fireflies is sure to point that out, making you breed hatred toward those who treat the protagonists as the invisible people they are in a world suffocated by the aftermath of a great war.
   
   It stands tall even today
   All things considering, perhaps for being one of Studio Ghibli's less demanding movie in terms of animation, Grave of the Fireflies aged very little over the decades. The animation is masterful when it comes to portraiting the characters' emotions, the background shots based on post-war Japan are skillfuly used to give the movie the sense of despair and sadness it tries to evoke, and the change from the yellowish sad palette to some green and bright shots allow you to reap the joyful short moments of this masterpiece.
   
   It cheats on you
   Grave of the Fireflies is sad, absurdly sad. It is no joke when people tell you this is one of the saddest movies ever made. This works because the tale is heartbreaking, yes, but most of all because it slaps on you where it hurst the most. By the end you can even think the direction is not being fair, as it throws in your face a memory or a shocking scene that quickly make you burst into tears. I don't even know if that was really necessary, or if it was in fact part of what makes the movie so tremendously tragical. It is there anyway, and it will touch you in some way (or I can't call you a human being).
   

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Comments
This is definetely the saddest piece of art I have ever seen. Grave of the Fireflies is to me Studio Ghibli's finest and one of those pieces of art that I can easily use as a reference to show how skilled japanese directors can be to present us to a tragedy. It's hard not to remember the most sorrowful parts of the movie as I write this review. Just picturing Seita and Setsuko in my mind, or looking at the artwork of Sestuko saluting make my eyes tearful. God damn you Ghibli.

Anyway, most people look for something when they watch a movie. Sometimes they want the thrill of action-packed scenes with superb coreography and visual effects. Sometimes they want to feel their heartbeat spike when the killer from a horror movie surprises the protagonists. Sometimes they simply want to take it easy and bash into a beautiful scenery with charming people on it. If, however, you want to be saddened, if you want to grief for the characters of a tale, look no further. Grave of the Fireflies will not only satisfy you, but perhaps make many other pieces of art be not as sad as you remember them.

ANIME EVOLUTION SERIES
Full list of the review series can be found on this page, 3rd post from bottom:
http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?uid=251338&show=userpage&do=blog&blogid=29009&page=0

The 80’s were the decade when the atrocities of war stopped being taboo and several anime were made to depict the aftereffects, the most direct of which was Barefoot Gen with the bombing of Hiroshima. Grave of the Fireflies takes a rather different approach to the subject by focusing solely on its characters and not on the actual catastrophe, in this case the bombing of the Kobe area. That is after all what makes this movie unique; it is more about the mentality of the characters and not of the actual destruction. In a way, it is a far more dramatic and realistic version of Barefoot Gen and its idealistic characters with their positive attitude and an ending that gives you hope for the future. This movie does the exact opposite; it starts by telling you that the kids will not have a good ending (thus not a spoiler) and then begins a flashback showing what exactly happened.

The movie also shows a lot of the bad side of humanity, with the Japanese being cruel to one another in their struggle to find enough to survive to the point they become uncaring even towards the suffering of children. It is at the same time not without its sparks of hope for a better future, especially in the scene with the kids burying the dead fireflies and wishing them better luck in their next life. That makes sense for those who believe in reincarnation and not one life and then straight to heaven or hell; thus from a Japanese perspective the ending hints that the kids may get a second chance in their next life (thus the meaning behind the name of the movie).

The movie practically shows the aftereffects of the destruction through the eyes of the two main siblings. It is meant to present the world with their innocence, their pure minds not tainted from the various social-political issues behind the war and the deaths of their relatives. They do not understand all that, nor do they care to find out. They are just trying to have a happy life with survival being a much secondary issue. When finally that issue does arise because they have nothing to eat, they still try to reason everything with their child innocence, thus once more the whole movie is in a way a criticism against the real reasons of the war. The grown ups make wars for various agendas but the children do not understand or care about them, yet suffer the consequences nonetheless. It is a much more poetic and direct form of anti-war message compared to Barefoot Gen and its over-the-top focus on making the explosion to look horrifying and the survivors to suffer yet try to find hope and move on. And that is why I consider it far more mature and superior as well.

The production values are also very good for its time, with the characters being full of lively motions and the backgrounds looking plain albeit detailed in secondary areas, such as textures and physics. The elegiac BGM and the innocent voices of the children, as well as the occasional cruel ones of the adults manage to create a much appropriate atmosphere that may even bring tears to all the not-so-good-at-self control viewers. Another thing that is done in a far better way than Barefoot Gen, where visuals and voice acting are so bad you feel like laughing at points.

And now for some excused scorings.

Looking at the poster of this film, a boy with an officer's hat caring for his sister in the midst of an American bombing, I feared this would be a piece of Japanese conservatism meant to incite nationalistic indignation towards America, or perhaps the rest of the world, for committing such atrocities. I imagined the boy-scout equivalent kid symbolizing the innocence of Japan or some such nonsense. Thankfully, it doesn't wave a finger of blame around. American bombs certainly sparked the series of events in this film, but it is just as much the aunt's fault for speaking insensitively to the children. Equally at fault is Seita, the brother himself, for not being able to swallow his pride and underestimating the harshness of reality. Seita's fervent faith in the Japanese empire is an ironic shot at the government of the time; they too had a part in these events for bringing the American military to their own doorstep and putting off the unconditional surrender. The film never picks out one party to villainize. It doesn't give us the respite of anger or hatred, or any other respite at all, from the depression that this film positively bleeds. Because the viewer knows the inevitable outcome early on, every bit of childish sweetness, every instance of love between the siblings is all the more heartbreaking. There is no escaping the sadness, and for this it is unique as a film that is engrossing, but also tremendously difficult to sit through.

Grave of the Fireflies is neither a history lesson, nor is it entertainment. It is a chronicle of events that never comes to a climactic point. There is no definitive explosion of melodrama that marks the film's peak. It feels pointless, much the way such events would feel in real life.

The passivity in the way the children express their emotions takes our pity for them to another level. When they lament their misfortune, they weep, or stare blankly, as if they no longer have the strength to give themselves release through bawling loudly, or screaming bitterly at the sky. That battered demeanor communicates a stifling sense of resignation and depression that is more powerful than any melodramatic outcry.

The animation is a little stiff and unspectacular for a Ghibli feature, but the film rarely relies on motion to convey anything so this is not a big hinderance, easily made up for by the spectacular detail and variety in way the characters' facial expressions illustrate the different nuances of pain in different situations. The most striking element by far is the gruesome and uninhibited way it illustrates how war can destroy humanity. People insensitively handle the very graphically drawn dead bodies. There is an instance when Setsuko is stricken with poverty and is checked by a doctor. She lifts up her shirt and the lines of her ribs are clearly visible, and with the depression in her abdomen and festering infections all over, it's clear that she is in imminent danger, yet the doctor barely bats an eyelash. It's not only the graphic depictions of death and disease that is striking, but how nonchalantly the characters in the film view it also. The music is largely slow and tragic, but a couple of pieces have a gentler, melancholic feel that fit well with Setsuko's oblivious innocence. The discordant sounding strings can be a bit heavy handed, and there are times when some of the sweeter scenes are obtusely paired with heartbreaking pieces, but for the most part the music is elegantly used.

Fictional tragedies are usually bittersweet. In Romeo and Juliet, an unfortunate circumstance created a misunderstanding, but the final acts themselves were in the name of the most beautiful emotion in the world. The audience can then take comfort in the fact that the misfortune was in the end, an expression of love. You'll find none of that in Grave of the Fireflies. I groped around desperately for some reprieve, a character to hate, a moral to the story, a silver lining, something that could make sense of the senseless tragedy. I found no such thing, and perhaps this is more in tune with reality, but I'd prefer fiction to indulge in a poetic flourish of some sort, just for the sake of balance; a bit of sweet to all the bitterness. Grave of the Fireflies is commendable for not selling out the unforgiving nature of reality, but as a result, it is the one of the most suffocating animated films ever created.

(I have a feeling most people reading this will give the review a low rating as soon as they see my overall score, but for the few who actually care to read the whole way through, there are several interesting points to consider)

"Grave of the Fireflies" is a late eighties Studio Ghibli film, a well-renowned classic about 14 year-old Seita and his little sister struggling to survive after their home is destroyed by carpet bombing, their mother killed, and their father i...s away fighting with the Navy.

Except...they don't really struggle. Not at first anyways. They have a loving aunt who is more than willing to give them a place to stay, help cook for, and take care of them. Far from being eternally grateful and thankful for this extraordinarily lucky turn of events, though, Seita is angry and resentful towards her. Why is this?

Well, because occasionally she makes insensitive comments about how Seita plays all day with his sister and eats her food, instead of going to school or working. And you know what? She's absolutely correct!

A 14 year old in the 1940's was a completely mature adult, especially during wartime, and more than capable of working for a living.

At that age, my great-grandparents and grandparents (who were born around the same time as the fictional Seita, except in the USSR, where far more people starved to death and died during the war than in Japan) were either in the military or working to support their family. This wasn't considered either tragic or unusual; it was simply the way life was back then for the countries at total war.

Hell, even the USA, which had by far the best of it during that time, had war rationing, and many young adults were forced to get jobs early.

However, Seita, despite supposedly caring for his sister, can't take this horrible verbal insult to his pride. He leaves his aunt's house, ignores the advice of a kindly farmer who tells him to go back and apologize, and continues obliviously playing with his younger sister...as they both slowly starve to death.

Thus, Seita is a completely callous, idiotic monster, responsible not only for his own death, but the death of his sister as well. That's my first problem with "Grave of the Fireflies". That the main character is responsible for the entire tragedy that ensues.

Another weakness of the movie is how completely contrived and fake the emotions were. You're telling me that when Seita sees his dead mother, her skin burned off her very flesh, he doesn't cry? He's so tough, that he tries to entertain his younger sister by doing tricks on a metal high bar?

That might make a great scene for a movie, but it's pure bullshit. Especially considering how childish and immature Seita acts throughout the rest of the movie. Him and his sister laughingly frolicking so soon afterwards is also pure garbage.

The aunt's own temperament is very odd. You're telling me that she shows no emotion upon hearing that her own sister has died? She's clearly no monster, and treats her nephews quite well, so why the utter lack of emotion? And why her bizarrely antagonistic attitude towards Setsuko, the younger sister? She's a four year old.

Seita is the one at fault here, not her. Again, it just makes very little sense.

While these two problems are to some extent forgivable, I can't overlook the third and most glaring flaw of this anime; it fails to make a statement. There is, quite literally, no point to the entire story.

Seita and Setsuko suffer tragedy during World War 2. They play and laugh a lot. Seita ignores the responsibilities of an adult. Eventually, they starve.

What's the punchline? What's the meaning? There have been thousands of films before this and hundreds of films afterwards about the cruelty of war. What makes this one special? What's the director's message about life and the human condition? There is none.

Arguably worst of all, I didn't feel any particular pity for the two fictional characters. The director even failed to do that.

Losing one's parents, living in a country at total war, and not having enough to eat are all horrible things...which every single one of my grandparents experienced during World War 2, except in their case, there was also a tuberculosis epidemic and a horrid evacuation to Siberia that makes the locales in Grave of the Fireflies seem like the Elysian Fields.

Thank God they didn't act like petulant children (despite being younger than 14 at the time) and lay down like the protagonists of the story, or else I would never have been born!

On the bright side, the animation of "Grave of the Fireflies" is, for its time, absolutely breathtaking, as is its attention to the most minute details of a scene must have taken tremendous dedication and effort on the part of the artists.

The music, while a simple orchestral score, is nevertheless touching, adding just the right emotion to several important scenes. It's not overpowering, but rather a soft background noise that makes one think of nostalgia and regret. In certain scenes, the music isn't used at all, which, if anything, enhances the scene.

I recommend people to watch this film for its historical significance, but don't believe the hype.

[br]Truly one of Studio Ghibli's greatest crowning achievements, Grave of the Fireflies is a brilliant masterpiece fully deserving of a place in any of the best movies ever made. Not just an astonishingly great (and, at the risk of coming off as cliché, perfect) work of art, this is a moving, thought-provoking, and ultimately heartbreaking tale about the loss of innocence and the tragedies of war.
[br]Based on an autobiography by Akiyuki Nosaka, the film, set during the bombing of Japan in --of all times-- World War II, centers on Seita, a loving, headstrong Navy soldier's son and his innocent little sister, Setsuko. Their fatal struggle for survival begins right at the start, when both are bombed out of house and home by American B-29s. Mom is seriously wounded and found wrapped in bandages at a hospital, where she dies shortly after. The children move to Nishinomiya to stay with their aunt. Auntie, a cold, bitter, self-serving woman, has no patience with Seita or Setsuko, especially when they would rather chase after fireflies at moonlight, play by the beach, or lounge around the house instead of helping out. After butting heads with Auntie long enough, the children decide to run away, setting up home in an abandoned cave by the lake. Both try by all means to live off of vegetables or whatever food they can afford to trade and/or steal, to no avail....
[br]The outcome of the story is actually showcased at the opening of the movie, where we see a ghostly specter of Seita watching a more malnourished version of himself die a painful, lonely death at a train station. Indeed, as we see how these events came to pass, we find ourselves rooting for Seita and Setsuko to find a way to stay alive, but alas, it is not to be, given Seita's stubborn pride. The overall tone of the movie is of a very tragic nature--even such lighthearted moments as the aforementioned sequences involving Seita and Setsuko playing around the house or gathering fireflies as lights for their cave are all tainted with a touch of sadness, for we know that these brief scenes of happiness will not last.
[br]Who is to blame for the plight of these children? The movie never addresses this question to the audience, nor does it really care to. It would be easy for director Isao Takahata to make this an anti-American movie, but he does better than that. Instead, he aptly conveys that war can spell serious--and deadly--consequences for victims. He also eschews casting any character as a hero or villain, and instead makes this a very human story, with no clear-cut "good" or "bad" characters. The aunt, for example, is not evil; she is merely an angry, desperate woman who is only struggling to survive just as much as Seita and Setsuko are. Atrocious as her treatment of the children is, we somehow never see her as a true baddie, but a very flawed, multi-faceted human being.
[br]Normally one would think of this kind of story as suitable for live-action, but Grave of the Firefliesproves that it can be told through the art of animation as well. This is no mindless showcase of gorgeous visuals--although the artistic merits of the movie are, as with Ghibli productions, sumptuous and at times breathtaking--but a display of real characters struggling with very tangible emotions. And the most amazing accomplishment about this movie is how much we grow to care for Seita and Setsuko--their inseparable bond of love and companionship is the heart and soul behind the movie.
[br]There are long stretches of silence on the soundtrack, with music used very sparingly, yet the movie is all the more powerful for it. The most effective moment is where we hear a scratchy rendition of "Home, Sweet Home" over a montage of Setsuko playing by the shelter. It's a simplistic, sweet, yet very saddening moment that not only works in the context of the movie, but on its own as well.
[br]I don't normally say this in my reviews, but I would definitely recommend watching this movie in its native language of Japanese for a truly powerful and memorable experience. That's not to imply, however, that the English dub, produced by New York-based Central Park Media, is inferior; on the contrary. It is, in fact, surprisingly good, with an effective lead in J. Robert Spencer and noteworthy cameo appearances by Anime voice-over actors Veronica Taylor, Crispin Freeman, and Dan Green. Rhoda Chrosite's Setsuko is the one voice that doesn't fare so well; she sounds more like an adult pretending to be a young girl, and comes across as strained during most scenes (save for when she is sick from diarrhea). Still, for those who can't read subtitles, the dub is more than adequate (although not as high-profile as others that I've heard).
[br]Even in a genre as multi-faceted as Japanese Anime, there are few films that literally everyone really must see. Grave of the Fireflies is one such movie.

When you finish watching this anime, don't expect to be in a good mood. This anime is meant to be a depressing and emotional look at the life and death of two children, and it succeeds.

The animation isn't too good, as this movie was made in the late 80s, but it is still decent and felt fitting due to the setting of the movie. Still, there is no question that the animation isn't up to today's standards.

The soundtrack is very moving and dramatic: it enhances every scene, especially during the emotional moments, turning a sad scene into a riveting masterpiece.

The story was very tragic and yet simplistic. There arn't plot twists or surprises, especially because of the Tarantino-esque way the writer told this story: starting from the end and then going back to understand the end. Still, the story is extremely touching and gritty, pulling no punches in this realistic story.

The characters are what makes this movie great. For a movie like this, it is neccessary to have amazing characters that the audience cares about in order to get the movie's point across. Setsuko and Seito are both amazing and extremely realistic characters. While watching the movie I was struck by how similar to a real little girl Setsuko was, down to every last action and emotion. Seito himself was also very interesting, and his growth and depth were apparent throughout the film as he struggles to keep himself and his sister alive. The only side character who gets much screen time is their aunt on their father's side of the family, who plays the bitter reluctant care-giver perfectly.

This movie is a almost a must-see for all anime lovers, especially those of the classic anime genre, and is a very good watch for those interested in seeing the devestating effects of war on a civilian population, especially on the pysche and health of the two young protagonists in this movie. Unlike most anime, this movie has to with real-life rather than fantasy or science fiction, and thus is extremely unique in the anime world.

While this wasn't a truly enjoyable movie for me (hard to enjoy a movie that makes you feel so depressed), I am glad that I watched it, and it kept me glued to the screen the whole time.