Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7413 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-10-08
• Rating: Unrated
• Formats: Animated, Collector's Edition, Color, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English
• Dubbed in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 159 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Isao Takahata's powerful antiwar film has been praised by critics wherever it has been screened around the world. When their mother is killed in the firebombing of Tokyo near the end of World War II, teenage Seita and his little sister Setsuko are left on their own: their father is away, serving in the Imperial Navy. The two children initially stay with an aunt, but she has little affection for them and resents the time and money they require. The two children set up housekeeping in a cave by a stream, but their meager resources are quickly exhausted, and Seita is reduced to stealing to feed his sister.

The strength of Grave of the Fireflies lies in Takahata's evenhanded portrayal of the characters. A sympathetic doctor, the greedy aunt, the disinterested cousins all know there is little they can do for Seita and Setsuko. Their resources, like their country's, are already overtaxed: anything they spare endangers their own survival. As in the Barefoot Gen films, no mention is made of Japan's role in the war as an aggressor; but the depiction of the needless suffering endured by its victims transcends national and ideological boundaries. --Charles Solomon

Customer Reviews

Wonderful tear jerker
I bought this after seeing it on Funination. It is a very sad tale, a 10 Kleenix at least but has much to offer in the way of art, Japanese culture and will show anyone interested that soldiers aren't the only ones who suffer in war!

My favorite movie of all time
Hands down. Powerful. My desert island movie even with nothing to play it on, just in case aliens with DVD players arrive to save me.

In my book, no movie ever made comes close to the brilliance that is this movie. Your life is not complete until you've seen it.

An experience like no other.
I had to pay a hefty price for this movie used from an Amazon vendor, but I found a like new copy and was glad I did as this is one of most emotionally driven anime... no, one of the most emotionally driven movies I've ever seen. The dark and depp colors used during the landscape and battle scenes will look beautiful, but it is eerie when combined with the sad, dark and sometimes macabre storyline. Everyone needs to see this movie at least once.