Hotaru no Haka

This is my first review of anything like this, so it's not going to be pretty, but it should get my point across.

This was a down right depressing anime movie, not for the story itself, but due to how bad it is. The music and animation was nice enough, but that cant save a horrible movie from being horrible. There was nothing redeemable in this movie. Seita was the worst main character I have ever seen in anything. Setsuko, wasn't exactly much of a main character to care about, but it was easy enough to feel sorry for what she had to endure at the ... hands of her pathetic older brother

The story takes place during World War 2 in Japan. The movie focuses around a young teenager and his young sister, as they try to survive after losing their home to an air raid. That could have been a good story to watch unfold, but it wasn't the case with this movie.

Instead, we're introduced to the main character Seita: a lazy, pathetic, worthless and immature brat. While the movie has no technical villain in it, he is one himself. He tries to do what is best for his sister, and due to that, blindness becomes his biggest fault. That could have been admirable, but not with a character as horrible as Seita.

Any aunt should get angry when her family is helping out with war time work and two others move in and has to support them both. All the brat had to do was find some way to help out with the war effort. His sister would have been in good hands with their aunt. Instead, all he wants to do is laugh and play with Setsuko, all the while hiding the truth about their mother from her. He wouldn't help around the house, besides to eat the food.

In the end, he couldn't handle their aunt telling the truth, albeit in a bitchy way, so he takes his sister and runs away. He only ends up dooming both his sister and himself. If he cant help his aunt's family out how is he going to take care of his sister? The answer, he cant even do that.

If you don't mind horrible characters, a bad story due to bad characters and you're a masochist, go ahead and watch this. If not and you like a good story, good characters and enjoyment, then don't watch this.

This film earns a solid 1 from me due to its frustrating elements.

Despite surviving a bombing, Setsuko tragically cannot withstand the consequences of her brother Seita's stupid decisions.

Seita consistently opts for the worst possible choices, leading directly to Setsuko's death from malnutrition—even though they had funds available in the form of their mother's savings. This plot point is not only implausible but also diminishes the overall quality of the narrative.

The artwork, while commendable, cannot redeem the film from the shortcomings of its poorly conceived protagonist, Seita.

I cannot recommend "Grave of the Fireflies" and wish I could reclaim the time spent watching it.

Honestly the only thing enjoyable about this movie is the gummy bears.

The entire story lead up to a disappointment, i feel as if the character development was lack luster, and you barely got to know the characters before they were hit by a tragedy. I feel little to no remorse from the series of unfortunate events that took place in this movie. The little girl was honestly one of the most annoying characters in anime history. One could compare the little girl to D.W from the popular American show Arthur.

Although some may say this is the best world war 2 movie ever created, ... i have to completely disagree and say it is not only THE worst world 2 movie ever made but one of the WORST movies ever made of all time. I honestly don't know what the writers were thinking when crafted this eye-sore.

The symbolism in this story is little to none as it is a series of actions with no deeper meaning at all. You just see characters come and go and you feel little to no connection to them.

If you want to see a REAL movie go check out Boyz in the Hood and Menace 2 Society. Those are true masterpieces.

Hotaru no haka was released in 1988, written and directed by Isao Takahata, and follows some kids slowly dying of starvation :). This movie disappointed me massively, to say the least. This has nothing to do with the hype surrounding it, but instead the fondness I've grown towards Takahata as I've gone through his filmography. I think the key difference between everything else and this is subtlety. While I don't think you can really call his films as a whole "subtle", the emotions that he conveys usually feel earned and organic to the story. To make an analogy, the rest of his filmography is like ... a slight tug on the arm, and this is a sledgehammer to the face.

From minute one, the whole purpose of this movie is to make you as sad as possible, but it never earns that impact. I think people conflate emotional response with "a good movie". This is a fallacy(imo) since there's plenty out there that's horribly depressing because of its content, but isn't good because the film itself isn't really special. For example, Dear Zachary made me ball my eyes out, but that's not because it's a good movie, it's because it has subject matter that is inherently depressing. Likewise here, this movie is sad because children starve to death, not because we're invested in the characters or anything. In fact, the main characters of this movie have no discernable personalities at all; they're just objects to be tortured and eventually killed. I don't care about these kids, but I'm still sad because they die a horrible death.

As to other issues in this movie, there is literally nothing special here. The animation is maybe a touch above average. The script is no better than anything I can write. The narrative makes no sense--there is no reason the kids should die in this, but that's a rant for the rewatch that'll never happen. The score is absolutely ridiculous and overbearing. The themes are nonexistent--what? War bad? That's all you've got for me? The characters outside of the two kids are all caricatures who make no sense in the real world. I could go on, but please, someone tell me, why is this movie good? In fact, there are some moments that are so contrived and intentionally over emotional that drag this movie below something I could even call average--the marble eating scene straight-up made me laugh. Anyway, I'm done here; this is a subpar movie, don't watch it unless you have some weird compulsion to.

Spoilers. There is no way to properly review this movie without spoilers. That being said, I would urge anyone considering watching Grave of the Fireflies to avoid doing so. Here's why:

This film is a perfect example of why reviews and recommendations are not the word of god and can often be wrong. With an 8.5/10 (as of writing this review) on both IMDB and MAL, you'd think this is something special, right? I first heard of this movie when a US veteran I know mentioned it as a "must see". Though he's a cool guy and I like him, it should be known that his ... service consisted of a few years stationed at some camp in a Louisiana swamp, and he did not see any combat.

First, let me say what this film does alright/good. The story is a solid concept that could be molded into something much better than this turned out to be. The art is great, especially considering its age. Sadly, the artists put much more effort into this film than the writers.

Here's where Grave of the Fireflies turns sour.

Most of the film represents a young teenager in war-torn Japan during WWII "struggling" to keep him and his younger sister alive. The sister is a generic, energetic yet powerless and unstable child. Fairly realistic, but nothing interesting for a film. The brother, on the other hand, unrealistically matches his sister's infancy. He doesn't just play hide and seek every now and then to keep her entertained, he ONLY plays with his sister. As cities burn around him and the rest of his family is dying to support themselves, each other, or their country. This absolute bullshit and backwards-ass thinking kills himself and his sister, as they run out of food, money, and their health deteriorates. At no point did this perfectly capable and at one point healthy young man consider getting a job to afford food for himself and his sister.

Early in the movie, their aunt and some other family provide the main characters a roof over their head, as their home town is reduced to ashes and both of their parents are dead as a doornail. Understandably they're currently struggling and family is there to help, right? They even get fed for some time, though the amount they get is slowly reduced as the aunt realizes this kid has absolutely ZERO aspirations to exert any effort. Obviously this teen with nothing in his name gives nothing in return. They don't even do so much as sweep the floors. Instead of realizing how big of a leech they're being on their family, they take their aunt's scolding as a personal insult to their dignity, and run away to live in a cave. They have some money (which they only got because they leeched it out of their dead mother's bank account), and buy small amounts of food from a farmer. This farmer, the only person with half a brain cell in the entire film, tells the brother to swallow his pride and apologize to his aunt, so he can have a roof over his head while he looks for a job. What does the brother do? Ignores this wisdom as if he didn't even know what words the farmer was uttering.

The rest of the film is pretty repetitive. "Oh no brother I'm starving!", "Sorry sis, let's play!", "Oh shit she's starving pretty bad, I should steal food.", "Brother I'm still starving I'm gonna die oh no"

It feels pointlessly depressing. Have you ever had a writing project in middle school or high school where you want to write something that sounds really cool but you also don't want to put in any effort and it's much more than what the assignment asks for anyways? Grave of the Fireflies feels like one of those projects. It's obvious the writers wanted to say some kind of message, but there's no message to be found in the movie, besides don't be a lazy piece of shit and resort to thievery from honest, hardworking and struggling citizens because the thought of honest work never crossed your mind. Clearly that wasn't the intended message though.

As for why I don't recommend watching this in the first place, like I said; it's pointlessly depressing. It's not a cinematic masterpiece, it's not going to make you cry, it's just going to make you frustrated and angry that people who mindlessly watched this film never paying attention to a single word of dialogue or story rated this a perfect 10/10 and told you to watch it because it's "so deep and sad dude!"

I suppose I must be in the minority of people who did not enjoy this movie. I went into it expecting a beautiful story that, while sad, would have the uplifting sort of end that I have come to expect from Ghibli. The score and English voice acting were okay for the time when it was made and the art was okay. My issue with this movie comes with the plot and the characters. The plot is slow moving and there are clear plotholes that only make sense if the main character is stupid. I found myself often checking the time wondering how much ... longer until it was over. So before I go into please note that there will be spoilers ahead.
So first of all, why did their mother leave ahead of them to go to the shelter? Your oldest kid is fourteen and bombs are being dropped on your city, so why the hell did you leave him and your four-year-old daughter alone to walk through a burning city to the shelter. The answer is that if she didn't she wouldn't have died and the movie wouldn't have a premise.
Next, why didn't he take out more money sooner? It appeared, to me at least, that they spent it all on the stove and such so I was super surprised when he is told she is going to die if she doesn't eat more and he tells his sister he will withdraw more money from the bank. If you still had money in the bank then why did you let her get so thin? You didn't have to steal food from farmers you could have just bought it. And even if you say that they couldn't buy food with money because money had no value compared to trade you can still consider that if they went to Tokyo it would likely be easier to buy with cash.
And while we're on the topic of Tokyo; He made absolutely no attempt to find his other family that lived there.
The main character seemingly does nothing o try to better their situation, aside from moving his sister into an outdoor shelter and stealing food from people. There were dozens of things he could have done to prevent the death of his sister like getting a job or swallowing his pride and moving back with his aunt, but no, instead he just lets his little sister starve to death while they still have plenty of money in the bank.

I was thoroughly disappointed with this movie. I had heard great things about it from friends, saying that it is an incredible and heart wrenching story. I thought the story was very boring and pointless, and it did not have the emotional impact that I was expecting (more on that below). I also had somewhat high expectations for the movie considering it is a Studio Ghibli film, but only the art and sound met those expectations.

Art and Sound 7/10:
Considering when the movie was made, the art is excellent. Unfortunately, it doesn't compare to modern standards, so I have to deduct a couple points from that ... score. The sound is pretty simplistic, but it was fitting for the movie. The voice acting was also pretty good (I watched the English dub).

Story 3/10 (slight spoilers):
The basic story is about a pair of siblings struggling to survive in Japan near the end of WWII after losing both of their parents to the war. I'd expect that to have some pretty sad moments to it, but the movie brushes over most of the instances that could show the emotional impact on the characters or unrealistically portrays the character's emotions in those scenarios to make them appear strong. Overall, the story has very little substance. The movie appears to be intended to illustrate the tragedy of war, but as I said, it doesn't provide enough emotional connection to relay that message properly, making it relatively pointless.

Character 3/10 (heavy spoilers):
I did not like the characters in this movie and they were pretty poorly written, for the most part. The three most important characters are Seita, the 14-year old older brother, Setsuko, the 4-year old younger sister, and their aunt.

Seito - Seito is an irresponsible and ungrateful teenager. The immediate impact of his mother's death is quickly brushed over, so all you really see from him in relation to it is him trying to cheer his sister up by spinning around a metal bar. This scene is meant to make it seem like he is being strong for his sister, but without a previous focus on an emotional response from him, it makes him seem less emotionally affected by his mother's death than he realistically would be. Additionally, while he and Setsuko are living with their aunt, he does nothing to support the household. He could go to work (not unusual for the time period, especially during war), help teach Setsuko better manners, or even help out around the house. Instead, he just spends his time relaxing and playing with Setsuko, living off of the small inheritance that they have and their aunt's hard work and generosity. Finally, when the aunt criticizes him for being a freeloader (completely justified, imo) he gets mad and decides he and Setsuko are going to live on their own. When they have trouble finding food and are clearly in trouble, he ignores advice to apologize and go back to his aunt because he doesn't want to swallow his pride and admit fault. Instead, he continues to fail to support himself and his sister and ultimately causes both of their deaths.

Setsuko - I found Setsuko's character pretty annoying, but she was the best written character in the movie. She came off as a spoiled brat who'd wine if she didn't get what she wanted, but that fit her upbringing. She had been spoiled prior to the events at the start of the movie, so it makes sense for her to act that way throughout the movie. Similar to Seita, Setsuko's immediate reaction to her mother's death was not shown, so the viewer does not get to see the full emotional impact of that news.

Aunt - I have mixed feelings on the aunt. On the one hand, she did a good and realistic thing taking her niece and nephew in and helping take care of them. She was also justified in criticizing Seita for his lack of responsibility. On the other hand, she also verbally took her frustration out on Setsuko at times. Setsuko was a very young child. She shouldn't be expected to work or provide for herself in the same way Seita or an adult should. The aunt's reaction to her sister's death was practically non-existent. Perhaps this was intentional, in an attempt to lay groundwork for her appearing to be a heartless person. I don't think she was heartless since she was supporting her orphaned niece and nephew and was correct in telling Seita that he should be doing more to "earn his keep," but someone less critical of Seita could see the aunt as a more heartless person.

Enjoyment 1/10:
I did not enjoy this movie at all. I thought the story was boring and relatively pointless, the characters were poorly written, and the emotional impact was extremely lackluster. The only emotion I felt from the movie was frustration with Seita's lack of responsibility.

Overall 2/10

This feels like a really hard movie to review. A lot of people seem to really like this movie, my own sister included, but I absolutely hated it. When the movie ended, I remember thinking to myself how pointless the entire thing was. I hated the main character. I know that I was supposed to feel bad for him, but I didn't. I told myself that maybe he was younger than he appeared, since it was animation. But no, he was fourteen. He was old enough to know better, and in the end, he got no worse than he put into his own life.

Maybe that's ... part of the tragedy of his story, but I feel like I was being led to have sympathy for him, and I didn't. I actually really, really disliked him. Maybe I am meant to dislike him, and it's just the people who gush over the movie who are the ones who missed the plot?

I'd rather not overthink it. It really isn't worth it.

If I am ever put in a similar situation, I hope that I don't let my pride and arrogance lead me down the same path he went down.

A word that all of us know, 'SORRY', just a simple word, maybe some of you think it is nothing, but it is a powerful word that can almost solve every problems.

However, our protagonist, Seita,he is just a selfish person who act without thinking for the sake of his sister, he refused to apologize to his aunt even though he did something wrong,which severely led to the story's tragedy. His stingy and stubborn personality is also one of the factors led to the tragedy, if only he could put down his pride as the son of a navy general and obey his aunt, his sister ... might still be alive.

As written by someone from the review section, his sister was the primary victim of his own brother stubbornness and recklessness.His sister's life was strongly determined by her brother's choices...Therefore i feels bad for his sister due to his own brother's stupidity.

I understand everyone has his own opinion, this is just my personal opinion.

This is huge bullshit. I can't believe some people rate it 10 as an incredible masterpiece "that makes you think about the consequences of a war", no. Literally no sense at all. Which is the moment that makes you think this movie is worth to watch? I almost fell asleep during it, waiting for something to happen. When the poor 4-year old child died, I was almost happier than sad. I don't care about a death if the character has said nothing and hasn't been relevant in the entire movie. Anyway, she's not to blame for this, she only had bad luck being with his ... dumb brother. A 4 for the decent animation and sound, nothing more, I'd rather listen to Guantanamo tortures than watching this awful movie again.

Oh my. They said this is one of the saddest and depressing animes of all time. But hey! It's not.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Story: 3/10
A simple plot. Seita with his younger sister Setsuko, tries to survive without their mother. Seita and Setsuko then lives at their aunt, literally doing nothing. When their aunt said that Seita should help during the war, Seita didn't do anything and they ran away from their aunt (total bullshit). Then they proceeded to die because of Seita's pride. Poor Setsuko.

Art: 8/10
Ghibli. Good. Art.

... Sound: 6/10
Fair enough I guess. I don't have much of a rant for this one.

Characters: 1/10
Definitely one of the worst brother and main character. Pride is more important for him than her sister apparently. Kill your sister yea. Aunt is a bitch too.

Enjoyment: 2/10
What? Enjoyed? Hell nah. I was annoyed because Seita cared more for his pride rather than the safety of her younger sister. The movie just left me annoyed and frustrated.

Overall: 4/10
Meh. Wouldn't recommend you to watch this. There's a lot of better movies than this. Also, this movie was never meant to be an anti-war movie. The message of this movie is to swallow up your pride.

I watched the anime movie Hotaru no Haka, also known as Grave of the Fireflies. It was made by Studio Ghibli in 1988. Here are my thoughts:

Going into this, I actually hadn't been spoiled or anything like that, so I had no preconceived notions besides it being a serious WW2-themed movie that is probably sad.

The visuals are nice overall. I'm not particularly fond of art styles from this era, so I'm a little biased in this regard. All the motion is fairly fluid. Lighting is used effectively (insert pun here). There is a lot of visual detail, particularly for objects and backgrounds (I often paused ... to admire the scenery). However, the blob-like same-face heads of the characters somewhat inhibits the use of facial expressions for nonverbal communication and expressing emotion. It is often the case that the characters' faces are the least detailed features of a given frame. It's possible though that I've been desensitized by the highly expressive faces of modern anime art styles.

The voice acting among the main cast is kind of flat and unemotive (this could be an intentional artistic decision or maybe just a cultural thing). However, dialogue is somewhat infrequent in this movie, so voice acting is of lesser importance. Of course it then follows that the OST is a more significant component. The OST is alright; it's fairly standard orchestral movie music. Actually, the sound effects in the movie are pretty good — ranging from subtle things, like the sound of running water, to much grander things like bombings. I should mention that I watched the Bluray version, which I'm guessing had remastered audio.

I have difficulty getting emotionally invested in movies. The runtime limitations make it hard for me to care about the characters. This is a major reason for why I tend to enjoy movie dramas less than other people. Hotaru no Haka was no exception to this in that, despite the seriousness of the story, I didn't feel much for the characters. The only character I empathized with was the younger child main character, mainly due to her helplessness and misfortune.

My biggest issue with the story is that the actions of the main male character often don't make sense. This compounds the issue of my lack of empathy for his character. It's difficult to care about a character who behaves seemingly nonsensically. Perhaps the underlying motivations for his actions should have been fleshed out more explicitly — I'd imagine the source material does a better job of this. Plenty of elaborate analyses of the main male character's actions have been written, but in brief unspoiled terms his actions ranged from confusing and frustrating to outright morally reprehensible, depending on the viewer's interpretation. In any case, this aspect of the story is consistently a major weak point. Apparently the source material is supposed to be semi-autobiographical, but knowing that now doesn't change my viewing experience.

In terms of historical value, the movie is an okay snapshot of Japanese civilian life during WW2. Nothing exceptional though, just standard fare for this kind of genre. The story focuses on the struggles of the main characters; very little attention is paid to large-scale events (not saying there's anything wrong with this).


My personal overall rating: 4/10
The thing I enjoyed most was admiring the scenery. Aside from this, not much else impressed me. The way the actions of the main male character were written and/or portrayed was a persistent issue.

Grave of the Fireflies is a demoralising communist propaganda movie. The movie begins with a young teenage boy dying and meeting the ghost of his dead sister. From the beginning, this movie tells you what its purpose is: to make you upset and demoralised. Everything that happens in Grave of the Fireflies is bad. There are no happy moments, no good decisions, no moments where you root for the boy or cheer for his little sister. The "anti-war" message is a message of defeatism aimed at the Japanese Nationalists who were frustated and furious that they had lost WW2. The colour palette is grimy and ... muddy, the music is subdued and melancholic, the animation is limited to realistic movement. Everything about this movie is to make you feel bad about yourself. There are no important insights or new perspectives you can gain from watching this. Of the many war-related anime movies, this one is by far the worst and most destructive you could watch.
Avoid this movie like the plague because its only goal is to make you despair.

14-year-old Seita and 4-year-old Setsuko live with their mother (Yoshiko Shinohara), English: Veronica Taylor) comfortably in Kobe while their father serves as a captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy. One day, air raid sirens go off as a fleet of American B-29 Superfortress bombers flies overhead. The children's mother, who suffers from a heart condition, puts Setsuko in the care of her older brother and instructs him to secure the home while she goes ahead to a bomb shelter. Hundreds of incendiary bombs are dropped on the city and most of the civilians are caught off-guard. Seita and Setsuko manage to survive the bombing unscathed ... and go in search of their mother. They find her at a makeshift clinic set up within a school, horribly burnt and covered head to foot with bloody bandages. She dies a short time later and is cremated in a mass grave with other casualties.

Despite their loss, Seita is determined to care for Setsuko and protect her at all costs. They travel to the home of their aunt (Akemi Yamaguchi, English: Amy Jones) who allows them to stay but convinces Seita to sell his mother's kimonos for rice. While living there, Seita goes out to retrieve leftover supplies he had buried in the ground before the bombing and gives them all to his aunt, however, he keeps one tin of fruit drops for himself. The children's aunt becomes increasingly bitter due to the hardships brought on by the war. She becomes resentful of the children as food rations shrink and she accuses Seita on having done nothing to earn the food she cooks. Tired of his aunt's insults, Seita decides to leave with Setsuko and care for her on his own.
*I didn't like this film,and I had very high expectations. I thought it was a very good tragedy movie,however,it isn't.
First of all,the plot is boring,and slow. I was almost sleeping.I'm a very sensitive person and I didn't cry.
The little girl was annoying,and her brother,useless.
No recommendable,unless you want to waste your time,and especially if you are a fussy person as me.From my point of view,it isn't worth it.*