Editing Grave of the Fireflies (section)

==Themes and analysis==
In his book about the film, [[Alex Dudok de Wit]] called ''Grave of the Fireflies'' an "unusually personal adaptation" of Nosaka's short story as Takahata had similar experiences during the war, though noted it deviated significantly in its portrayal of the children as ghosts in its opening sequence whereas the short story began immediately with the children losing their mother during the air raid.<ref>{{cite book |last=Dudok de Wit |first=Alex |author-link=Alex Dudok de Wit |title=Grave of the Fireflies |publisher=[[BFI]] | year= 2021}}</ref>

Some critics in the West have viewed ''Grave of the Fireflies'' as an [[anti-war]] film due to the graphic and emotional depiction of the pernicious repercussions of war on a society, and the individuals therein. The film focuses its attention almost entirely on the personal tragedies that war gives rise to, rather than seeking to glamorize it as a heroic struggle between competing nations. It emphasizes that war is society's failure to perform its most important duty: to protect its own people.<ref name=":7">{{cite web|title=Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no haka)|last=Etherington |first=Daniel|url=http://www.film4.com/reviews/1988/grave-of-the-fireflies|work=[[Film4]]|publisher=[[Channel Four Television Corporation]]|access-date=23 November 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130322000916/http://www.film4.com/reviews/1988/grave-of-the-fireflies|archive-date=22 March 2013}}</ref>

However, Takahata repeatedly denied that the film was an anti-war film. In his own words, it "is not at all an anti-war anime and contains absolutely no such message". Instead, Takahata had intended to convey an image of the brother and sister living a failed life due to isolation from society and invoke sympathy particularly in people in their teens and twenties.<ref name = Interview>Interview published on May 1988 edition of ''[[Animage]]''</ref><ref name = Things>{{cite book|year=1991|script-title=ja:映画を作りながら考えたこと|trans-title=Things I Thought While Making Movies|language=ja|first=Isao|last=Takahata|author-link=Isao Takahata|publisher=[[Tokuma Shoten]]|page=471|isbn=978-4-19-554639-0}}</ref> Takahata also describes Japan at that time as "repressive", a time when "totalitarianism at its lowest" was endorsed in social life. He said "Seita defies such totalitarianism and tries to build a 'pure family' with Setsuko alone. Is such a thing possible? No, it is not possible, so he lets Setsuko die.{{nbsp}}[...] But can we criticize him? The reason why we modern people can easily sympathize with Seita emotionally is because the times have reversed. If the times are reversed again someday, the time may come when many people have more opinions to denounce Seita than that widow. I find it frightening."<ref name="Interview"/>

Since the film gives little context to the war, Takahata feared a politician could just as easily claim fighting is needed to avoid such tragedies. In general, he was skeptical that depictions of suffering in similar works, such as ''[[Barefoot Gen]]'', actually prevent aggression. The director was nevertheless an anti-war advocate, a staunch supporter of [[Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution]], and has openly criticized Japan's penchant for conformity, allowing them to be rallied against other nations. He expressed despair and anxiety whenever the youth are told to fall in line, a reminder that the country at its core has not changed.<ref>{{cite web|title=時代の正体〈47〉過ち繰り返さぬために|trans-title=The Truth Behind History <47> To Prevent Repeating Mistakes|last=Takahata|first=Isao|author-link=Isao Takahata|url=https://www.kanaloco.jp/article/72742|work=[[Kanagawa Shimbun]]|date=1 January 2015|access-date=29 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306040501/http://www.kanaloco.jp/article/72742|archive-date=6 March 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>

Despite the public's emotional reaction, [[Isao Takahata|Takahata]] expressed that the purpose of the film was not to be a tragedy or make people cry.<ref name=":2">Animage, vol 151, January, 1991.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2018-04-06 |title=R.I.P. Isao Takahata, co-founder of Studio Ghibli and director of Grave Of The Fireflies |url=https://www.avclub.com/r-i-p-isao-takahata-co-founder-of-studio-ghibli-and-d-1825035306 |access-date=2023-03-17 |website=The A.V. Club |language=en}}</ref> Moreover, he regretted depicting Seita as a boy from that era because he wanted him to come off as a contemporary boy who acted like he had time-traveled to the period. He didn't intend for it to be retrospective or nostalgic. He wanted the Japanese audience to recognize Seita's misguided attempts to withdraw from society and family.<ref name=":2" /> Furthermore, he says that his decision to show the audience that Seita and Setsuko have died at the beginning of the movie is to protect the audience from heartbreak, "If an audience knows at the beginning of the film that the two will eventually die, they are more prepared to watch the film in the first place. I try to lessen an audience's pain by revealing everything at the beginning."<ref name="Faith"/><ref name="lwlies.com"/>

The fireflies in the film are portrayed as symbols of various themes such as the spirits of the lost children, the fires that burned the towns, Japanese soldiers, the machinery of war, and the regeneration of life through nature.<ref name=":3">{{cite journal |last1=Goldberg |first1=Wendy |title=Transcending the Victim's History: Takahata Isao's Grave of the Fireflies |journal=Mechademia |date=2009 |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=39–52 |id={{Project MUSE|368618}} |doi=10.1353/mec.0.0030 |s2cid=122517858 |doi-access=free }}</ref> [[Okypo Moon]] states in her essay "Marketing Nature in Rural Japan", that hundreds of fireflies were caught nightly in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a shift to reinstate this tradition and "there are now eighty five 'firefly villages' (''hotaru no sato'') registered at the Ministry of the Environment in Japan.<ref>Okpyo Moon, "Marking Nature in Rural Japan", in Japanese Images of Nature, ed. Pamela J. Asquith and Arne Kalland (Surrey, U.K.: Curzon Press, 1997), 224–25.</ref> The movie uses fireflies to visually represent both deadly and beautiful imagery, such as fire-bombs and kamikazes.<ref name=":3" /> Takahata chooses to use the ''kanji'' "fire" instead of the normal character for the word firefly in the title, which has been interpreted to represent the widespread burning of wooden houses in Japan. Critic Dennis H. Fukushima Jr. believes that this modification of the title is to emphasize parallels between beauty and devastation, citing the relationship between fireflies, [[M-69 incendiary|M-69 incendiary bombs]], naval vessels, city lights, and human spirits.<ref name=":3" /><ref name="Grave of the Fireflies"/>

In the book ''Imag(in)ing the war in Japan representing and responding to trauma in postwar literature and film'', David Stahl and Mark Williams commend the film for not emphasizing Japanese victimhood to avoid responsibility for atrocities of the war they played a role in. They interpret that Seita's character embodies working towards healing historical trauma and victimization, because it is his nationalistic pride and selfishness which ultimately contributed to his sister's death.<ref>Stahl, David C., and Mark Williams. "Victimization and "Response-ability": Remembering, Representing, and Working Through Trauma in Grave of the Fireflies." ''Imag(in)ing the War in Japan: Representing and Responding to Trauma in Postwar Literature and Film''. Leiden: Brill, 2010. N. pag. Print.</ref>