Grave of the Fireflies
Grave of the Fireflies (Japanese: 火垂るの墓 , Hepburn: Hotaru no Haka ) is a 1988 Japanese animated war drama film written and directed by Isao Takahata, and produced by Studio Ghibli. It is based on the 1967 semi-autobiographical short story Grave of the Fireflies by Akiyuki Nosaka.
The film stars Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi [ja] , Yoshiko Shinohara [ja] and Akemi Yamaguchi [ja] . Set in the city of Kobe, Japan in June 1945, it tells the story of two siblings and war orphans, Seita and Setsuko, and their desperate struggle to survive during the final months of World War II. Universally acclaimed, Grave of the Fireflies has been ranked as one of the greatest war films of all time and is recognized as a major work of Japanese animation.[4][5]
In March 1945, American Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers destroy most of Kobe during the close of World War II. Military children of an Imperial Japanese Navy captain, Seita and Setsuko Yokokawa, survive, but their mother is severely injured and later dies. Seita conceals their mother's death from Setsuko to keep her happy. The siblings move in with a distant aunt, and Seita retrieves supplies he buried before the bombing and gives everything to his aunt, save for a tin of Sakuma drops. As rations shrink, the aunt convinces Seita to sell his mother's silk kimonos for rice. Seita also uses some of his mother's money in the bank to buy supplies.
