Grave of the Fireflies (1988) movie poster

Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

火垂るの墓
"Why do fireflies have to die so soon?"
ThumbScore
👍 96%Google users liked it ⓘ
Critics Score
🎬 97%
AnimationDramaWar

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Where to Watch

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Director
Runtime
1h 29m
Rated
NR
Country
Japan
Language
Japanese
TMDB Rating
8.4/10 (6,403 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes
100%
Metacritic
94

Cast

Tsutomu Tatsumi as Seita (voice)
Ayano Shiraishi as Setsuko (voice)
Yoshiko Shinohara as Mother (voice)
Akemi Yamaguchi as Auntie (voice)
Masayo Sakai as Woman who takes care of Setsuko (voice)
Kozo Hashida as Obayashi Chairman (voice)
Kazumi Nozaki as Cousin (voice)
Yoshio Matsuoka as Gosaku (voice)

Is Grave of the Fireflies good?

Yes. 96% of real audiences liked it, by Google's archived audience score. Critics agree, scoring it 97%.

Where it ranks on ThumbScore

Rank in its genre
#2 / 661 · Animation
Rank in its year
#1 / 67 · 1988
Rank among its director's films
#1 / 5 · Isao Takahata

By audience score, among films with 500 or more votes.

Overview

In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive. Wikipedia ↗

About the Film

Grave of the Fireflies is a 1988 Japanese animated war drama directed by Isao Takahata, produced by Studio Ghibli. Based on Akiyuki Nosaka's semi-autobiographical short story, the film follows Seita, a teenage boy, and his four-year-old sister Setsuko as they struggle to survive in the final months of World War II after firebombing destroys their home in Kobe, Japan, and kills their mother. Rejected by relatives who view them as burdens, the siblings take shelter in an abandoned bomb shelter and attempt to live on their own, but malnutrition, disease, and the collapse of society around them make survival impossible.

The film's opening, which reveals that both children die, removes any possibility of hope and forces the audience to experience their suffering knowing it will not be redeemed. Grave of the Fireflies is widely considered one of the most devastating anti-war films ever made and one of the greatest animated films in history. Roger Ebert called it one of the most powerful war films ever produced.

Despite being released as a double feature with Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro, the film's subject matter was so emotionally overwhelming that many audiences found it difficult to watch. Grave of the Fireflies has been preserved by numerous cultural institutions as one of cinema's essential works.

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