The story is taken from the true story "Grave of the Fireflies" which tells of a tragic war of brothers.
The anime, entitled Grave of The Fireflies, is inspired by the true story of brothers who were affected by World War II. In Japanese, this film is entitled Hotaru no Haka, which means Tomb of Fireflies, which was adapted from a book written by Akiyuki Nosaka.
An anime film (as animation is called in Japan) that tells about the struggle for survival of brothers and sisters during World War 2, more precisely after their homes were affected by the atomic bomb attacks that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
This film tells about the bad impact after the war and the bad impact is very big after the atomic bomb was dropped on an area. The main characters in this film are Seito (14 years) and Tetsuko (5 years) and they are brothers who are trying to survive after their parents died in the war.
This 88-minute film was first released in 1988 which was produced by Studio Ghibli and Shinchosha Company. The costs incurred in making this anime film amounted to $ 3,700,000 and earned a profit of 1.7 million Yen and $ 516,962 for its own rating of 8.5 on IMDb while the rating on Rotten Tomattoes is 95%.
In 2005 Hotaru no Haka was adapted into a live action film produced under the auspices of the Nippon Television Network with producers Mamoru Koizumi, Ken Murase, and Toshiaki Nanba. The film director is Tôya Satô and the screenplay is written by Yumiko Inoue.
And this film stars Hōshi Ishida, Mao Sasaki, Nanako Matsushima, Mao Inoue, Tsuyoshi Ihara, and other extras. At the same time, I will write that the music composer is Kan Sawada, if you don't know the person, please search for yourself, hehe. Of course, this film is in Japanese, because this film was produced by Japanese people and the video and characters were taken from Japan.
Storyline
The beginning of this anime film shows a teenager lying dead hugging a can of fruit candy, two officers find him and seem to be used to this situation, finding and 'cleaning' dead tramps at the station. The officer also found the can of candy and then threw it in the grass not far from the body found and the can turned out to be filled with ashes.
Not long after that there were lots of fireflies flying out of the can of fruit candy that the station attendant had thrown away. Then a little girl appeared, the little girl was about to approach the stiff teenager's body at the station, when she was about to take a step the teenager was already behind her. Magic isn't it. It turns out that this scene is the spirit of the three, the spirit of the girl, the spirit of the teenager and the spirit of the firefly.
After this scene, the story returns to the time after the incident occurred in an area where suddenly there was news that a bomb would explode around the cypress family's house, uh, the family was harmonious in their house, but suddenly they immediately rushed to take shelter in a different place. safe. The first child and his younger sibling were ready to go, they just had to wait for their mother. For some reason, her mother stayed at her house first and told her two children to take shelter in a safe place.
Not long after that, this brother and sister looked at their house again which had been affected by the bomb. The house and trees were destroyed. Because of this, many victims died in the incident, including the parents of our main characters, Seito and Setsuko. Their fathers both served in the Japanese navy who are either still alive or not, this film doesn't tell much more, and their mother was killed by a bomb.
The two of them were on a street where there were lots of people passing by looking for something they considered important, maybe looking for their surviving family or taking things that could still be used. The aftermath of this bombing tragedy has left deep sorrow and loss for anyone.
Seito and Setsuko, who saw their house destroyed, then went to the house of their only surviving sibling, namely their aunt. At his aunt's house, it is his hope that the two of them will get a home for them to take shelter from the heat and rain and it is also his hope that his aunt will take care of them both properly.
For a while their aunt wanted to accommodate the two of them in her house but their aunt was often stingy in matters of eating, it's understandable because after this bombing incident apart from the destroyed house, psychic and staple foodstuffs also became scarce and increasingly rare.
Very often Setsuko misses her mother, the older sister who is kind to her sister also always comforts her sister, one of which is showing the many fireflies around her aunt's house. When the younger sister is sad, her older sister gives her a fruit-flavored candy that her mother had saved before she died.
It didn't take long for the food stocks at her aunt's house to run low, finally the items left by the mother of two siblings had to be sold for daily needs. However, the rice purchased is still not enough to meet daily needs. Since the arrival of Seito and Setsuko, his aunt thinks the two of them are parasites.
Because the treatment of his aunt also showed dislike for the two of them and Seita didn't want to bother his aunt anymore, the brother and sister finally left their aunt's house with their mother's belongings and some savings.
After leaving their aunt's house, the two brothers wandered in an uncertain direction looking for shelter from the hot sun and food. At first they took shelter in a cave not far from their aunt's house. To light up they both catch fireflies. It turned out that in the morning the fireflies died and the fireflies were buried in the cave.
Not long after he lived in the cave, the two brothers ventured out again. Initially, the two of them were able to eat well because they still had savings and some of the items left by their mother could still be used to exchange food. In the end the money ran out and they ate as they made it, if they found a frog then the frog was what they ate.
In addition, sometimes they steal fruits or agricultural products that they meet during their trip. There was an incident when the owner of the garden caught stealing and beat him and was arrested by the police and finally released because the police were compassionate. After some time the younger sister, Setsuko, became malnourished, hungry, and getting thinner. His brother looked for him food but it was too late for that. Setsuko was already weak and in the end caught up with her mother first.
At this moment, it was really sad, because my beloved sister, who had passed away, was cremated by her older brother who was still a teenager. If even an old person is left by a loved one, they die and are cremated by themselves, the sadness is very deep, especially those who are still teenagers.
Setsuko's cremation ashes were containerized in a tin of fruit candy boxes and carried by Seito wherever he went, even when he died at the station, his sister's cremation ashes were still in his arms and were finally found and thrown away by the station staff.
Based True Stories
The storyline in this film is based on the true story of Akiyuki Nosaka. As I mentioned earlier that this anime is adapted from the novel by Akiyuki Nosaka who died in 2015 yesterday at the age of 85.
Akiyuki's sister really did die as she told in the novel she wrote herself. After his novel was published, Akiyuki received the most famous literary award in Japan in 1967, the Naoki Prize.
Conclusion
There are many messages contained in this story, broadly speaking, the bad effects of war make ordinary people not know anything about the effects, most often the impact is death that separates families and their children. Besides that, we can learn from these brothers and sisters, no matter how bitter life is, life must go on and try as much and as much as possible.
It would be even more exciting if all of my friends watched it for themselves, while at the time this article was published, this film was still available on YouTube. Just choose to watch the anime version or live action . For the graphics of the anime, I think it's very good, considering that the anime version was made in 1988.
Watching the film directly will get a different experience and make a more impression than reading this review. Maybe you will cry after watching this anime, because this story has a sad plot.
The impact of the war was more negative than positive. For example, many people die in vain, hunger is everywhere, many children are abandoned because their parents died as a result of the war, world stability is disrupted, the chain of suffering will no longer be avoided. Of course we hope that the world will be peaceful, there will be no more wars, and there will be no colonization in this modern era.
