Caleb Plouffe

Mr. Terrien

Hon. Modern World History

11 November, 2025

The Sad Demise of Seita’s Family

The film “Grave of the Fireflies” is about a boy and his sister named Seita and Setsuko whose village was bombed and destroyed. Shortly after the air raid ended, they found out that their mother had died during the air raid. This led the two of them to have to live with what we are to assume is their aunt, who was not super happy about them living rent free. Due to some rude comments and some obvious discontent with their presence, Setsuko and Seita both leave to live in an abandoned shelter to try and survive until their dad comes home from the war.

Not long after they leave and get set up inside the shelter, they run into a problem with food and clean drinking water. That problem leads to Seita having to steal food and resources to help his sister, who was getting very sick due to malnutrition. Seita brought Setsuko to the doctor to see if there was anything that he could do to help Setsuko survive, but got no help because of the cause. In the end Seita overheard that Japan had surrendered and the entirety of the navy had been sunk, leading to the realization that the war was over, but his dad had fallen. On top of having no more parents because of the war, Seita’s sister ended up dying because she could not get enough nutrition from the little food that Seita could obtain.

In order to understand how this movie approaches a historical event, you have to understand that almost every nation involved in the war has had some sort of issues when it comes to the public of the nations. War is a tragic thing, forcing so many people to seek shelter, join camps, flee the country, or sometimes just die. Looking at this movie, the main characters are forced out of their home because of war, and have to live with others in order to survive. It wouldn’t be so much of a surprise if this happened to almost everyone and anyone in the world at this time.

Knowing the tragedy of war can influence how some of us act when we grow up or have people in need that we are able to help. It also represents the scarcity of resources the moment that one area gets destroyed, with some farmers barely making enough resources to provide for themselves. Seita had been going around and attempting to trade with many many people so that he could feed himself and his sister. Seita and assumedly people in real life resorted to robbing peoples houses while they were evacuating to bomb shelters for items to trade, but failing to trade some things due to not being the cleansest.

Some things that were interesting were that IHL(international humanitarian laws) had to be included in the Geneva Convention for the military to not just bomb civilians. The need of the creation of the Geneva Convention seems honestly stupid, just due to the fact that some parts of it should generally be unspoken rules of war. Whereas some laws such as chemical warfare make sense to be part of it, given how deadly and in a way you could say “cheap” it is. But putting that aside, you have laws such as article 15 where it states that “the wounded and sick shall receive adequate care”, which evidently did not happen much in The Grave of the Fireflies. Along with that, there is article 12 which states that the wounded and sick must be protected and respected without any discrimination of any criteria whatsoever.

The creation of The Grave of the Fireflies is not so much to be a children’s movie just because it is animated, but is a great representation of how some life was throughout the duration of the war. Although this film was more focused on more historical events, it also can connect to advancements in film history showing that you can represent some tragedies in less harsh forms. All in all, movies aren’t all for just entertainment, but also for informing new generations of people on how the past was and may sadly end up being.

Chen, By Heather. Grave of the Fireflies: The Haunting Relevance of Studio Ghibli’s Darkest Film. 16 Apr. 2018, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43695803.

“Historical Perspectives on Isao Takahata’s Grave of Fireflies – Not Even Past.” Not Even Past, 4 Sept. 2023, notevenpast.org/isao-takahatas-grave-of-fireflies-1998.