One night, the firebombing begins. The raid on Kobe—a historical event that killed thousands—turns the city into an inferno. Seita and Setsuko escape, but their mother does not. Seita finds her in a makeshift school-hospital, horrifically burned and dying. He cannot cry; he must protect his sister.
is not a film you “enjoy.” It is a film you survive. For 89 minutes, you live in the dirt, the hunger, and the quiet desperation of two children abandoned by their nation. When the final title card appears—a dedication to the 200,000+ civilians who died in the firebombings of Kobe—you realize that Seita and Setsuko are not characters. They are stand-ins for a generation of Japanese children erased by fire. Grave of the Fireflies-Hotaru no haka