By: Cleo Newton        

*Warning: This review contains spoilers

‘Grave of the Fireflies’ is a studio Ghibli movie about two siblings trying to survive through World War Two in Japan. At the beginning of the movie, a sickly boy is sitting hunched over against a column; a couple scenes later, he dies. The movie then shows what events happened that led up to this point in the movie.

The 14-year-old brother, Seita, is responsible for taking care of his little sister, Setsuko. During the first air raid, Seita was seen quickly burying supplies like food in their family’s backyard. He tells his mom that he would meet her at the safe house with his little sister in a bit. The mom leaves and in a couple minutes, the bombing starts.

After the bombing, everybody in the town was called to meet at the elementary school to get food, medical attention, or any other help they can provide. There, Seita and a friend line up to get food. Seita leaves his little sister with the friend to go see his mom after hearing she was injured in the bombing. His mom was in terrible condition; she has really bad burns covering her entire body.

After seeing her like this, Seita doesn’t want Sesuko to see her until she gets better, so he lies to her and says that she’s in a hospital and that they can see her when she gets better. Seita and Setsuko go to stay at their aunt’s house which is nearby. Their house, and many other buildings, were destroyed during the first bombing.

There, they eat and sleep. Seita works to get food and plays with his sister in his free time. He also writes to his dad who is a soldier fighting in the war. Their aunt may be providing them with food and shelter but she isn’t very caring. She gets annoyed when Setsuko cries; she tells Seita that he isn’t working hard.

Later, Seita and Setsuko decide to move out, and they find a sheltered place by a lake to live. They brought things like a mini stove, bedding and some food with them. They have fun the first couple of days but they soon run into another problem; they’re starting to run out of food.

During the air raids, Seita goes and steals things from people’s houses after they leave so that he can trade them for food. Even though he has things to trade, people won’t trade with him. Seita struggles to find food for him and his sister as they don’t have any money and no one is willing to trade with them.

Later, Seita finds out that Setsuko is sick and brings her to the doctor. The doctor just says that she needs to eat more food. Seita resorts to stealing food from other people’s gardens. The owner of the garden eventually finds out and turns him in to the police after beating him up. Luckily, the police let him go since he’s still a kid.

Eventually, Seita does manage to buy some food after extracting money from his parent’s bank account. While he was at the bank, he overheard people talking about how Japan lost the war. He’s really upset because this means that now both of his parents are dead. He buys more food but Setsuko has already been starving and dies later that night. The next morning, he gets some coal so that he can cremate his sister. After he finishes cremating her, he puts some of her ashes in a tin and leaves. The movie ends with Seita walking down the hill leaving the shelter and everything else behind.

I got a copy of this movie from the library, but you can also watch it on AppleTV. Overall, I would give this 4.5/5.