Editing Grave of the Fireflies (section)

===Theatrical===
The film was released on 16 April 1988, over 20 years from the publication of the short story.<ref name="Animerica9">{{cite journal |title=The Animerica Interview: Takahata and Nosaka: Two Grave Voices in Animation |journal=[[Animerica]] |volume=2 |issue=11 |pages=9 |url=https://ghiblicon.blogspot.com/2011/04/animerica-interviews-isao-takahata-and.html |year=1994  |access-date=4 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180704093747/http://ghiblicon.blogspot.com/2011/04/animerica-interviews-isao-takahata-and.html |archive-date=4 July 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The initial Japanese theatrical release was accompanied by [[Hayao Miyazaki]]'s light-hearted ''[[My Neighbor Totoro]]'' as a [[double feature]]. While the two films were marketed toward children and their parents, the starkly tragic nature of ''Grave of the Fireflies'' turned away many audiences. However, ''Totoro'' merchandise, particularly the stuffed animals of Totoro and Catbus, sold extremely well after the film and made overall profits for the company to the extent that it stabilized subsequent productions of Studio Ghibli.

''Grave of the Fireflies'' is the only theatrical Studio Ghibli feature film prior to ''[[From Up on Poppy Hill]]'' to which [[The Walt Disney Company|Disney]] never had North American distribution rights, since it was not produced by Ghibli for parent company [[Tokuma Shoten]] but for [[Shinchosha]], the publisher of the original short story (although Disney has the Japanese home video distribution rights themselves, thus replacing the film's original Japanese home video distributor, [[Bandai Visual]]).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/disney/|title=The Disney-Tokuma Deal|date=10 September 2003|work=[[Nausicaa.net]]|publisher=Team Ghiblink|access-date=5 January 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101229011953/http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/disney/|archive-date=29 December 2010|url-status=live}}</ref> It was one of the last Studio Ghibli films to get an English-language premiere by [[GKIDS]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://uproxx.com/hitfix/gkids-extends-its-studio-ghibli-alliance-to-grave-of-the-fireflies/|title=GKIDS extends its Studio Ghibli alliance to 'Grave of the Fireflies'|first=Guy|last=Lodge|work=[[Hitfix]]|publisher=[[Uproxx]]|date=20 November 2012|access-date=6 May 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180704124250/https://uproxx.com/hitfix/gkids-extends-its-studio-ghibli-alliance-to-grave-of-the-fireflies/|archive-date=4 July 2018|url-status=live}}</ref>