Hotarubi no Mori e

During a summer vacation at her grandfather’s house, six-year-old Hotaru Takegawa gets lost in a forest rumored to be inhabited by spirits. While crying out in desperation, Hotaru is approached by Gin—a mysterious boy wearing a mask—who offers to help her.

Overjoyed at the sight of another person, Hotaru runs to Gin with open arms only to be rudely fended off. However, she quickly learns the grave reason behind his behavior: a dreadful curse has been cast upon Gin. Should he ever be touched by a human being, he will disappear forever.

Though Gin urges her to never return, Hotaru does the exact opposite, and before too long, the two become close friends despite his delicate situation. Nonetheless, as years pass and their mutual feelings grow stronger, Hotaru and Gin start struggling with the boundaries that destiny has set between them.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Gin Main

Uchiyama, Kouki Japanese

Takegawa, Hotaru Main

Sakura, Ayane Japanese

Mother Takegawa Supporting

Sawada, Izumi Japanese

Ryouta Supporting

Taya, Hayato Japanese

Grandfather Takegawa Supporting

Tsuji, Shinpachi Japanese

Miyake, Masanori Producer

Katsumata, Hideo Producer

Kyoutani, Tomomi Producer

Sugawara, Hirofumi Producer

Reviews

Jul 12, 2012

Z-I-CO

Recommended

I am not great at writing reviews, but I am trying to get better so please bare with me on this one. Hope you like my review though ^^ ok so lets get on with it.

I started to watch this because it was written by Yuki Midorikawa. I loved her previous work "Natsume Yuuchinjou" and I was hoping this would be another good anime to pass my time on. I was not wrong.

I am sure that on this movie there are many reviewers who has retold the summary of this story in their own review which I am going to skip over because I ... am pretty sure you get the gist of it.

The whole plot was well put together. Even though the movie was only 40 mins. long, it did not seem rushed at all. Every scene flowed well into place.

BEWARE: READ ANY FURTHER AND THERE MIGHT BE SPOILERS!!

The characters were well played and none of them annoyed me, which is a plus point for me. It was really heartbreaking to see both Gin and Hotaru growing up to be good friends and eventually falling in love. Seeing them both struggling to hold each other and feel each other's warmth did make my eyes water.

Whenever I watch any anime, I am really careful about the ending because even though an anime could be great, the ending could really kill the whole story for me. But the ending on this movie was too good. Though it would be better if they could get together, but that did not happen...it was still beautiful though!

I definitely recommend this!! Can't wait to see what Yuki Midorikawa comes up with next! ^^

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Aug 4, 2013

Wulff

Mixed Feelings

Hotarubi no Mori e is a relatively short movie that attempts to portray the developing relationship between a young girl and a spirit who stumbles upon said young girl in a forest.

Unfortunately, the movie suffers greatly from being as short as it is.

With that said, the movie does have some appeal to it.

First of all the artstyle of the movie is good. By no means will it blow your mind, but it is definitely drawn with care to it and it is detailed. There is no particular scene in the entire movie I can strike down upon and say "The animation faltered there".

Secondly, the music ... of the show brings about a decent atmosphere while you are watching, swinging from very calm and relaxing to more solemn and lonely tunes. It fits the movie and never goes beyond the limits of the different scenes. That being said, it is not a soundtrack you will immediately recognize upon re-listening to a couple of months later.

Where the movie begins to falter is in its story and in its characters. The story itself is rather basic and not at all unheard of. The main premise of the relationship between the two characters is established fast and leads the viewer to quite easily being able to predict an outcome of the story.

The characters are not dislikeable, but they are definitely not anything beyond the ordinary.

Not only that, but because such a long period of time of the main character's life passes over the course of ~40 minutes, it became hard for me to immerse myself with the character and her emotions, making the movie feel a bit dull, for the lack of a better word. Her emotions are understandable to me, but I completely failed to relate and the movie in its entirety didn't really invoke anything emotional for me.

My last big gripe with the movie was the inclusion of the supernatural. It felt very forced. What I mean by this, is that this same story could quite easily have been told without the inclusion of the supernatural. We are introduced to several supernatural beings during the movie, but nothing about them is ever really explained. To me it felt like a boring cop-out in order to add drama to the relationship of the two main characters (Making one of them a supernatural being).

Overall, the movie is not bad and I feel like if it had been longer, with more time to explain the world of the two characters, it could have actually been great. However, for me it was nothing to write home about.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 13, 2024

CxttonCandyyy

Not Recommended

Funny

Into the Forest of Fireflies' Light was incredibly disappointing. Based on the trailer, rating, synopsis, and cover, I really expected this to be a cute, sweet, heartwarming movie. Unfortunately it's just a tale of pedophilia and grooming. I didn't realize this was meant to be a romance going into it, so that's my fault I suppose. Regardless, this anime is just 40 minutes of an adult flirting with a child and watching her grow older. The whole thing is gross, but this would've been a decent story if not for the egregious age gap. I only gave this 2 stars instead of 1 because the ... art was decent.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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