Summaries

Synopsis

Taking place toward the end of World War II in Japan, Grave of the Fireflies is the tale of the relationship between two orphaned children, 14-year-old Seita and his young 4-year-old sister Setsuko.At Sannomiya Station, on 21st September 1945, Seita is in rags and is dying of starvation. A janitor comes and digs through his possessions and finds a candy tin containing ashes and bones. He throws it out, and from it spring the spirits of Setsuko and Seita, as well as a cloud of fireflies. The spirit of Seita continues to narrate their story, which is, in effect, an extended flashback to Japan near the end of World War II, during the Kobe fire bombings.

The flashback begins with dozens of American B-29 Superfortress bombers flying overhead. Setsuko (Ayano Shiraishi) and Seita (Tsutomu Tatsumi), the two siblings, are left to secure the house and their belongings (which are buried in the ground by Setsuko), allowing their mother (Yoshiko Shinohara), who suffers from a heart condition, to reach a bomb shelter. The mother was going ahead, while Setsuko and Seita were supposed to follow her to the shelter.

They are caught off-guard as the bombers begin to drop hundreds of incendiary bombs, which start huge fires that quickly destroy their neighborhood and most of the city. Setsuko and Seita reach a safe place just outside the city and they wait the night out. They re-enter the ruined city in the morning, trying to look for their mother. They learn that an aid station has been set up at the school for survivors.Although they survive unscathed, their mother is caught in the air raid and is horribly burned. She is taken to a hospital but dies a short time later and is cremated in a mass grave with other casualties.Seita was taken to see his mother before she passed away, but he doesn't tell Setsuko about her death. Seita only says that their mother is sick and will join them when she gets better.

Despite their loss, Seita is determined to care for Setsuko and protect her at all costs. Having nowhere else to go, Setsuko and Seita move in with a distant aunt (Akemi Yamaguchi) in Nishinomiya, who allows them to stay but convinces Seita to sell his mother's kimonos for rice. While living with their relatives, Seita goes out to retrieve leftover supplies he had buried in the ground before the bombing. He gives all of it to his aunt (and tells her that their mother died 2 days ago at the school), but hides a small tin of fruit drops, which becomes a recurrent icon throughout the film. Their aunt continues to shelter them but as their food rations get smaller and smaller, she becomes increasingly resentful. She openly remarks on how they do nothing to earn the food she cooks.Seita tries to make things work by spending time with Setsuko in the fields surrounding the house, where they try to catch fireflies together.

Their aunt, brainwashed by the Imperial cause and only concerned for her well-being, keeps most of the supplies for herself, her daughter (Kazumi Nozaki), and her male lodger while becoming verbally abusive towards Seita and Setsuko, accusing them of leeching off her.

Seita and Setsuko finally decide to leave and move into an abandoned bomb shelter. They release fireflies into the shelter for light, but Setsuko is horrified to find that the next day they are all dead. She digs them a grave and buries them all, asking why they have to die, and why her mother had to die. What begins as a new lease on life grows grim as they run out of rice, and Seita is forced to steal from local farmers and loot homes during air raids.

When he is caught, he realizes his desperation and takes an increasingly ill Setsuko to a doctor (Hiroshi Kawaguchi), who informs him that Setsuko is suffering from malnutrition but offers no help. In a panic, Seita withdraws all the money remaining in their mother's bank account. As he leaves the bank, he is distraught when he learns from a nearby crowd that Japan has surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Powers and that his father, a Captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy who had promised him that Japan could never be defeated, is probably dead, since nearly all of Japan's navy is now at the bottom of the ocean. He returns to the shelter with large quantities of food, only to find a dying Setsuko hallucinating.

Seita hurries to cook, but Setsuko dies shortly thereafter. Seita uses supplies donated to him by a farmer to cremate Setsuko and puts her ashes in the fruit tin which he carries with his father's photograph, until his own death from malnutrition in Sannomiya Station a few weeks later.

Seita dies of starvation a few weeks later at a Sannomiya train station surrounded by other malnourished people. A janitor is tasked with removing the bodies before the Americans' arrival. As the janitor sorts through Seita's possessions, he finds the candy tin and throws it into a field. Setsuko's ashes spread out, and her spirit springs from the container and is joined by Seita's spirit and a cloud of fireflies. The two board a ghostly train and, throughout the journey, look back at the events leading to Seita's death as silent, passive observers. Their spirits arrive at their destination: a hilltop bench overlooking present-day Kobe, surrounded by fireflies, healthy and content.