Warning: The following review will include discussion of violent imagery, infanticide, and genocide.
If you read my piece last year on Hayao Miyazaki’s modern masterpiece The Boy and the Heron (君たちはどう生きるか) (2023), then you know that the Ghibli studio head deliberated if the film was the right one for the global political present, which he felt was on the brink of war. This deliberation is at the heart of that war-weary fantasy about generational change and responsibility. If you were an ancient adult or dork kid in 2003, you might even remember Miyazaki’s absence when Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し) (2002) won the Best Animated Oscar. He later told the LA Times, “‘The reason I wasn’t here for the Academy Award was because I didn’t want to visit a country that was bombing Iraq,’ he said. ‘At the time, my producer shut me up and did not allow me to say that, but I don’t see him around today. By the way, my producer also shared in that feeling.’” When I finished watching this first U.S.-released Blu-ray of the early Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies (火垂るの墓) (1988), I opened Bluesky and the first post I saw was from Absolute Dominion director Lexi Alexander sharing an article whose header image was a Palestinian father cradling the charred corpse of his baby. If you’ve seen the legendarily heart-rending Grave of Fireflies before, then you know why, of course, Ghibli has chosen now to re-release the film in America.
“Don’t want Americans to see this.”
Grave of the Fireflies follows two siblings, Seita (Tsutomu Tatsumi) and Setsuko (Ayano Shiraishi), as they attempt to survive the end of World War II in Kobe, Japan. In the beginning of the film, their family and neighborhood are caught up in the American firebombing of their houses, and as the film goes on, they try to negotiate the politics of extended family members, wartime rationing, and Imperial Japan without starving to death. They are shot at by U.S. planes, starved by our blockades, burned by our bombs, and neglected by our occupying government. In the included excellent excerpt from Ebert and Roeper At the Movies (2000-2008), Film Critic Roger Ebert recounts meeting Vietnamese filmmakers whose war films simply refer to us, the enemy, as “them,” or “the enemy,” and says they explained to him that with so many invaders in mid-century Vietnam, war was reinforced as a cosmic us-vs.-them, and that which nation was attacking when did not matter. But while Grave of the Fireflies never makes the move of waving an American flag on screen, it does make clear through dialogue that in this film, as our hearts cry out for the vulnerable, innocent, and misled alike, that it was literally us vs. them, and these were not enemy soldiers.
L-R: Seita voiced by Tsutomu Tatsumi and Setsuko voiced by Ayano Shiraishi in GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES. Photo Courtesy of GKIDS Films.
In their wanderings waiting for their Navy Officer father to return from war, these children encounter the full beauty of Japan, the beaches, the vegetable fields, the grass, and the fireflies. But among the wonders hide scattered corpses, camouflaged war planes, and guarded crops. At the worst moments, the visceral cries of babies, the burning dead, and the Emperor’s fanatics force their way into the experience of the film, and it is an experience first, narrative second. Director Iso Takahata (The Tale of the Princess Kaguya; Only Yesterday) discusses at length that detail, not narrative structure, was key to the film, that he wanted viewers to experience what it was like to be a war-time child, powerless to feed yourself and unprepared to step into adulthood. He wonders in the included interview if he did it too well as most audiences see the older brother Seito entirely as a victim, while Takahata sees him as a flawed character not responsible for, but exacerbating his own suffering. Seito is impatient, headstrong, and lacking in the perseverance that Takahata says he saw in survivors of the war, himself included. But maybe Ebert had a better handle on this dissonance than the director; when speaking on why the abstraction of animation can be a purer form of expression than live-action for complicated expressions: “…what you have is the idea of a little girl who’s starving…” while if Grave of the Fireflies was adapted into live-action instead, and Setsuko was a young actress who seemed to be starving, “the fact of that image might get in the way of that image.” The animated distress of the film is overwhelming, approaching pure emotion.
“Why do fireflies have to die so soon?”
But there is nothing in the way between you and the image of this starving girl except your willingness to look and your individual capacity to keep your eyes open. This is the way it always is. This is the way it is with Gaza and Iran, the way it was with Iraq and Afghanistan, and when a braver press was finally allowed to see the truth, the way it was with Vietnam. It’s the way it was with Japan, too, if you had the daring to seriously wrestle with what cities disappearing from the face of the Earth in the blink of an eye would mean to those who’d walked those streets. If you talk to the ever-growing crowd of Ghibli enthusiasts in the U.S., responses like “I actively avoid this movie” are common. For most people, looking away has always been easy, and for a tortured few who do all the mountain moving, it is impossible. But for American Ghibli fans, it has only recently become a choice to make, as GKids and Ghibli have been bewilderingly rolling the film out on Netflix first, followed by Blu-ray, then theaters via Ghibli Fest, the reverse of the standard re-release financial strategy. It’s an interesting path that could increase passive awareness of the film, seeing it on the carousel, passing by the disc in Barnes & Noble, seeing ripped clips on social media, in order to increase attendance at the Ghibli Fest release. Almost all films are best watched with a crowd in a theater, but difficult films need it the most. It’s easy to hit the menu button when Grave of the Fireflies makes you cry in the first five minutes, but the peer pressure of a crowd keeps you in your seat. It’s why my friends and I still talk about the day we walked out of The Zone of Interest (2023) weeping, but none of us with our towers of plastic have bought the Blu-ray. That and A24’s too-high prices.
Setsuko voiced by Ayano Shiraishi in GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES. Photo Courtesy of GKIDS Films.
When the film first released in theaters, Grave of the Fireflies was programmed with a double-feature with Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro (1988), one of the most interesting decisions a film studio has ever made. According to Takahata, the order was random, not set. Sometimes your joy was brought low by grief, and sometimes your wrung out soul was refilled. For some people who got Fireflies second, even the peer pressure wasn’t enough to keep them in the room, and walkouts were common. I believe that with real atrocities, we have a responsibility to witness, to resolve, and to remember. But that does not mean we must get lost in sorrow. Just as you do not have to seek out images of every Palestinian death on social media to be a good anything, you do not have to watch Grave of the Fireflies to be a good cinephile, fan, or person. It’s a hard watch, and I know good people with good hearts and hard pasts who probably shouldn’t. But if you regularly seek catharsis in your cinema, if you are a completionist who cannot let this one go, or if you simply want to watch one of the most beautiful and moving animated features ever made, you finally have the chance.
L-R: Seita voiced by Tsutomu Tatsumi and Setsuko voiced by Ayano Shiraishi in GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES. Photo Courtesy of GKIDS Films.
Not only is Grave of the Fireflies out now on standard Blu-ray and steelbook, but it’s coming to American theaters like Regal this August, the 10th-12th specifically in the NC Triad. For a while, a steelbook edition was exclusive to the Ghibli Museum in Japan, but now it’s not. It is easy to wave this away as part of the recent bounty of Ghibli merch that has flooded the market as Miyazaki has loosened his grip to feed the Ghibli employees, but I don’t think so. I think the man who last asked “Is this the right time to make a movie” thinks we have not learned our lesson, and he’s right. The artist who refused to legitimize the respect of a country invading another doesn’t think we learned our lesson, and he’s right. The boy who survived our bombs doesn’t think we learned our lesson, and he’s right.
Grave of the Fireflies Special Features:
- Feature Length Storyboards
- Deleted Scene Storyboard 1
- Deleted Scene Storyboard 2
- Image Galleries
- Joint Project Promotional Video
- Interview with Director Isao Takahata
- Interview with Roger Ebert*
- Teasers & Trailers
*Note: An edited segment of Ebert and Roeper At the Movies in which only Roger Ebert’s statements and replies are maintained.
Available on Blu-ray, DVD, and limited edition Blu-ray steelbook July 8th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Shout! Studios Grave of the Fireflies webpage.
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Categories: Films To Watch, Home Release, Recommendation
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