Starring: Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, Akemi Yamaguchi
As he dies shortly after the Second World War, a young man named Seita (Tatsumi) tells his story about him and his younger sister, Setsuko (Shiraishi) fending for themselves when an air raid destroys their home and possessions.
Though Iseo Takahata has made a proven name for himself in the world of anime, his accomplishments are often overshadowed in the west by his Studio Ghibli colleague, Hayao Miyazaki and perhaps this is owing to their differing tastes in genre. Miyazaki has traditionally favoured fantasy and imagination, whilst Takahata's approach is anchored more in reality, which is more out of step with a wide western perception of anime. Whilst Miyazaki's films such as My Neighbour Totoro (1988), Princess Mononoke (1997) and Spirited Away (2001) are all well known in the west, Grave Of The Fireflies is perhaps Takahata's best known singular film in the mainstream.
Grave Of The Fireflies draws less comparison from Miyazaki however then it does from British animated film When The Wind Blows (1988) in portraying war wii a sense of tragic innocence and the loss of that innocence (although Fireflies is about the innocence of youth, When The Wind Blows covers a form of innocence in old age. Grave Of The Fireflies is animated with a sense of often sublime beauty and fantasy amidst the occasional scene of carnage and with earnest performances from leads Tsutomo Tatsumi and Ayano . the film does have a slight tendency to push the tragedy to really punishing levels (though, no doubt, that has basis in reality) but for those who can stomach the darker stuff, Grave Of The Fireflies is a rewarding film that shows the strengh of anime even if kept in the confines of relatively realistic live-action. Fittingly the film was remade in live-action in 2005 and 2008.
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