Grave of the Fireflies

Many people claim that the most devastating losses of a war are the soldiers that fight and die in it. However, the civilian casualties represent a much higher and disastrous death toll. The Japanese anime film “Grave of the Fireflies” is a perfect example of how wars affect the innocent citizens of a country.  Seita is a fourteen year old Japanese boy who lost his parents and home in the bombing by the Americans. He must take care of his four year old sister, Setsuko, but even taking care of himself proves to be a great task. Seita has many forces, internal and external, that are working against him.  His guilt, lack of necessities, such as food and medical care, and his selflessness are very prominent forces acting against him in his struggle for survival but the biggest antagonist is his diminishing hope.

            Seita’s guilt is a major antagonist in the film “Grave of the Fireflies.” His guilt keeps him sad and dejected; therefore he is unable to fully provide for himself and his sister. Seita is guilty because he feels he could have done more to help his parents. His mother was severely injured in an air-raid, and eventually died. He feels that he could have done more to protect her or somehow help her in her time of need. Instead, he let his mother die and let his family fall apart.  His guilt is also fueled by the fact that his father is fighting in the war and he is not helping. The feeling that he is not helping the war, merely surviving it, haunts his conscience and constantly makes him feel ashamed and sad. With all his shamefulness and sadness, he constantly double-guesses himself and makes careless mistakes like getting caught stealing. Once he makes a few small mistakes, his guilt and shame grows exponentially and pushes him into a downward spiral of mistakes and heartbreak which he cannot get out of. His aunt also fuels his guilt and shame by constantly criticizing him and his sister. She continuously says that Seita should be doing more for the war effort and that he is a lazy moocher that does nothing but fool around. This fortifies Seita’s pre-existing guilt and pushes him to the point where he needs to move away from her, despite his need for survival. With the realization that his mother is dead and his father is gone to fight, he feels guilty doing nothing to avenge their sacrifices. His guilt drives him dislike his own existence, which makes it even harder for him to get food to survive.  Seita’s guilt is one of the most powerful forces working against him, making survival even more difficult.

            One of the worst forces pushing Seita down is the need for food and medical care for his sister and him.  While staying with his aunt, food and care did not seem like a major issue, but since he and his sister lived on their own, food was hard to come by. Even with Seita selling everything he could for food and stealing food from locals, the two of them became extremely emaciated. After a while, food became so valuable, people stopped selling it and started keeping it for themselves. This made surviving extremely difficult because food is one of the things humans must have to live. Their hunger worked against them even more. The hungrier Setsuko and Seita got, the more desperate they got, as well. This led them to make foolish mistakes and almost get separated. They were literally starving to death, and they couldn’t do anything about it. Medical care is another human necessity for survival. With malnutrition, Setsuko got very weak and very sick. The doctor said that simply food was enough to bring her back her health, but they couldn’t even get food to put in their mouths, let alone heal an ailing little girl. Seita tried everything he could to get food and save his little sister, but in the end, it just wasn’t enough. Food and physical health are the most important external forces that Seita and Setsuko faced, and with everything else, they could not overcome it.

            One of Seita’s main issues in this time of need is his own selflessness. When food is scarce and hope is almost lost, he tries to provide for his sister more than himself, which hurts him in the end. In the film, Setsuko got very ill and needed more care and food than usual. When he finally gets food, he gives it all to his sister and takes none of it for himself, even though he is starving to death. His sister was nearly a lost cause because she was so sick, but he still tried to save her. If he had eaten even half the food he got, he may have been able to survive, but he wanted desperately his sister to be okay. His own selflessness became his own undoing. When he was with his aunt, Seita gave her some of the food he found at his old home. Even though she was being mean and cruel to Seita, he still gave her food so she could survive. Again, if he had not been so selfless, he could have taken that food and kept it for himself and his sister and they’d be very well off. Seita wanted desperately to save and help everyone he could, while he could’ve saved himself without as much effort. His selflessness was a major reason why he could not save everyone he wanted to, but also the reason why he was unable to save himself.

            There were many forces, internal and external, Seita had to fight against, but the biggest was his rapid loss of hope. Hope of reuniting with family and hope that everything will soon be okay kept Seito going, but with these outcomes becoming less and less likely, survival became a major struggle. Seito kept writing to his father who was fighting in the war, and waiting for the day that he and his sister get to see their father again. Then Seito learned that the war was loss and every soldier was dead. This drastically damaged his hope because it was almost certain his father was dead and that things were not going to get better for him. This loss of hope made Seita less willing to fight as hard to survive because he did not want to survive for nothing. Who wants to fight tooth and nail for survival knowing that there will never be a point in time where they won’t have to struggle? The guarantee that their situation will not improve destroyed Seita’s ability to survive. The death of his sister also proved to him that he will die soon. He cared and protected for his sister with all his might but even that couldn’t save her. He realized at her death that he has the same inevitable end and stopped trying. He knew that no matter what he did, his situation would not get any better and he would die. With the death of the rest of his family and discovering that Japan lost the war, Seita lost all hope of survival and simply gave up at the end. This force was the strongest of them all, because without hope, no one can go on. Seita’s loss of hope was the final straw, and pushed him to death.

            Seita was a kid pushed into an unfortunately horrible situation, as were many Japanese during World War Two. He had many forces that were acting against him in his fight for survival. The need for food and medical care, guilt, and his selflessness were powerful forces acting against him, but the most powerful was his rapid loss of hope. With all these forces acting against him, it made it impossible to survive. Seita’s failure to succeed was caused by forces that were physically impossible to over-come. Instead, Seita loses everything he has, including his own life. “Grave of the Fireflies” was an extraordinary film that represented the harsh reality of war, and made the viewer understand that the civilian casualties could be so much worse than the casualties of soldiers.