What would warriors returning to fight their wars in the afterlife look like? In Japan, they are sometimes imagined as fireflies.”Grave of the Fireflies” ties two wars together with visual poetry.

Once upon a time, there was a great civil war in Japan between the Taira and the Minamoto clans. At first the Taira were able to gain the upper hand, and ruled through the emperor in the capital of Kyoto from 1160 to 1185. But in their kindness was born the instrument of their defeat. They did not kill all of the Minamoto and two great leaders rose: Yoritomo and Yoshitsune. Yoritomo organized a revolt against the Taira and under his rule his greatest general Yoshitsune would be forced into exile and finally killed. For the first time the capital of Japan would be moved from Kansai to Kanto, from west to east–not in Tokyo but in nearby Kamakura. The war is known variously as the Genpei War (源平合戦  Genpei Kassen) or the Taira-Minamoto War (also Jishō-Juei War (治承寿永の乱 Jishō-Juei no ran). The Gen is for the Minamoto  (源 Gen) and the hei or pei for the Taira (平 Hei), using the alternative way of reading the kanji.

There’s a Japanese folktale that says the defeated Taira became fireflies and rise each summer during the Obon season for a brief respite. Japanese fireflies only glow in the night for two weeks. Among the species found in Japan, two are named for the Taira and the Minamoto: The Genji 源氏 and the Heike 平家 or the Genjibotaru (Luciola cruciata) and the Heikebotaru (Aquatica lateralis).

When masses of these two different species rise at night in the same places there’s a slight confusion, a gentle, bloodless war. According to Mock Joya’s “Things Japanese” when masses of hotaru descend upon the hillside, it used to be called “hotaru gassen” or firefly wars as if the incarnated souls of the soldiers of the Minamoto and Taira familes “continue to fight even after they have been turned into fireflies.”

Minamoto no Toshiyori源俊頼 (1055-1129), also known as Minamoto no Shunrai, wrote a poem about fireflies:

哀にも

みさをにもゆる

螢かな聲たてつべき

此世と思ふに

Aware ni mo
Misa wo ni moyuru
Hotaru kana
Kowe tatetsubeki
Kono yo to omou ni

The poem is about the value of “aware” that permeates in Japanese aesthetics. Toshiyori expressed how moved he is toss the burning light of fireflies and how it wants to cry out at this world. He could not have known that centuries later fireflies would be associated with is family.

People who read Japanese immediately realize that Akiyuki Nosaka wanted to add to the literary traditions of the firefly just by the title he chose for his semi-autobiographical short story, “Grave of the Fireflies,” or, in Japanese 火垂るの墓 (Hotaru no Haka).

The word for firefly in Japanese, hotaru, can be expressed in one kanji (Chinese character) 蛍. In modern Japanese, hotaru doesn’t show the character of fire, but in the older version of the kanji, there are two symbols of fire above a roof and underneath is the kanji/radical for bug or insect (螢). Nosaka chooses to use the character for fire,火 (here pronounced as ho, but could be pronounced as ka as in kayōbi) and the character which can be read jyū. Kajyū can mean many things with different kanji such as fruit juice 果汁　or too too heavy or burdensome　過重。(As a verb, it would be omoru, meaning to get heavy, grow serious.)   Both of these things–fruit juice and too much responsibility are important within the story. Modern boxes of the hard candy Sakuma Drops have the added allure of “real fruit juice included” (kajyuu iri) although the animated version doesn’t have this on the tin we see.

It is within this historical and cultural context that “Grave of the Fireflies” layers reminders of one war upon another. Taking place during the 1940s and the movie traces the sharp decline in the fortunes of two siblings, 14-year-old Seita (b. 1931) and four-year-old Setsuko (b. 1941).The age of both main characters includes the unlucky number four which is a homophone for death.  The birth years of both children have some historical significance. Pearl Harbor was bombed 7 December 1941. The Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931 (18 September 1931).

For Everything, There Is a Season

Seita dies on 21 September 1945, before the the autumnal equinox (23 September 1945), which again is a reminder of his sister whose name literally means child of seasons. The autumnal equinox (秋分の日 Shūbun no Hi)  has been a public holiday since 1948, but prior to that it was celebrated under a different name: Shūki kōreisai (秋季皇霊祭), a Shinto related  festival.

The character for autumn, is in both Shūbun and Shūki and the hiragana for shū easily becomes jyū. The kanji for autumn is both rice and fire together. And rice becomes significant later in the movie. Seita (清太) literally means young or youthful boy.

In Japanese, there’s also a pleasing repetition in the day of Seita’s death–Showa 20 September 21 and there’s a repetition of the syllable jyū which might remind one of the title kanji. For speakers of Japanese, it should be obvious why this wouldn’t be possible with September 20, because the 20th day becomes hatsuka.

Seita (清太) dies in 三ノ宮駅 Sannomiya station which is named for the Sannomiya Shrine, a branch of Ikuta Shrine. For the Japanese the Ikuta Shrine (生田神社) would add poignant irony. The Ikuta Shrine is supposed to be the shrine for the guardian of health. The first character means life. The Ikuta Shrine figures as a battle ground during the Genpei War.The Ikuta Shrine survived and was re-built after heavy flooding from the nearby river occurred in 1938, the air raids over Kobe during World War II and the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995. People visit the shrine to get amulets–white for boys and red for girls, hoping for happiness.  The name of the city Kobe means god or gods’ door (神戸).

Connections: Made and Missed

In English, when we first see a fly on the dead Seita’s face it is easy to make the connection to fireflies, but in Japanese while the radical for the character for both firefly (hotaru) and fly (hae) can be seen, the same radical is also used for tooth cavity and a variety of seafish. Flies are definitely related to death in this movie and we will see flies on dead bodies and their maggots forming on the badly wounded mother.

Yet an English speaker might draw different meanings from a fly seen near vinegar or water. Likewise, a fly near a face in Japanese can be linked to an old saying, “Mazu waga atama no hai wo harae” or First drive off the flies from your own head.”

We know that not everyone just “minded their own business.” Someone leaves a bundle of rice balls for Seita, but it is too late. Later as the scene pulls back, we see the rice balls have disappeared. This and the fly foreshadow events that led to Seita and Setsuko’s deaths. When Seita wanted rice balls, he was refused by a relative and that exchange leads to Seita and Setsuko striking out on their own.

When the can is thrown out, ashes fall out (hai) and the palette of the movie has a reddish glow. From a Western perspective one might relate that to purgatory or hell, but Japanese did not originally believe in such things and red was and is considered a celebratory color and one of heroism. Seita is joined by a joyful Setsuko and they board a train into their past.

Kobe was firebombed (4 February 1945, 16-17 March 1945 and 5 June 1945) because it was sixth largest city and largely constructed of wood. At the time, it was Japan’s largest port city and yet it had a very low water supply. This is alluded to in the images of the open water trough, the bamboo ladder and the metal bucket. All are clearly labeled in Japanese: 防火用 (bōka-yō) or “for fire protection.”

As Kobe burns, Seita and Setsuko flee with Seita remembering to take a photo of his father and his sister’s foreign-looking doll but doesn’t have time to bring a coat. Others take worldly goods and for a moment Seita is framed by an empty barrel, something that should remind us of the lack of liquids, the title of the movie (taru also means barrel) and even a Hokusai (“Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji: Bishu, Fujimi ga hara”).  Once in a shelter, the foreground is green, but the background has a red pallet.

Seita mentions that his mother must surely be waiting for them at Niponbashi. “Matsu” is a frequently used kakekotoba or pun word. Matsu is a homophone for both “pine tree” (松） and to wait (待つ). In the reddish background are the silhouettes of pine trees. And Nipon could stand for Japan (日本　Nihon or Nippon) or for two long cylindrical objects (二本　nihon). We see two tree trunks that have grown close together, like twin pine trees.

In Japan, there’s a tale about an old couple whose lives were intertwined, “Takasago.” This Noh play was also known as “Twin Pines” (相生松 Aioi Matsu). The play references places in the Hyōgo and Osaka prefectures (Kobe is the capital of the Hyōgo prefecture). A priest from Kyushu arrives at Takasago which is in the Hyōgo prefecture and he meets an elderly couple who are the spirit of the twin pines. The pine trees are the symbol of a wedded couple who will remain together for eternity and in a sense, Seita and Setsuko play house, fulfilling the roles of man and wife, provider/protector and helpmate who are now together in eternity as suggested by the ending.

Takasago is references in poetry, including two famous anthologies: the Kokinshu and the Shinkokinshu.

誰をかも

知る人にせむ

高砂の松も昔の

友ならなくに (KKS XVII: 909)

Dare wo ka mo
Shiru hito ni semu
Takasago no
Matsu mo mukashi no
Tomo naranaku ni

This poem asks what person can I say I know. The pines of Takasago are no longer my friends.

たかさごの

松もむかしに

なりぬべし

なをゆくすゑは

秋のよの月 (SKKS VII: 740)

Takasago no
Matsu mo mukashi ni
Narinubeshi
Nao yukusue wa
Aki no yo no tsuki

The Takasago
Pines from the past
Will undoubtedly recede
Still into the future passes
The moon of Autumn nights

Fireflies and Cherry Blossoms

Seita does find his mother, but she is unwell and she dies. Seita doesn’t tell his sister yet. He takes her to their aunt’s, a woman who is happier to have the food they bring than to have them. She rubs butter on her face. She eats leftovers when she could well feed the two. She gives them soup that is mostly broth, reserving the food at the bottom for herself and her daughter and husband.

Unlike his female cousin, Seita’s assigned workplace has been bombed. He spends his days amusing Setsuko and reading novels about warriors. His aunt complains about his idle and this stands in contrast to another well-known proverb about fireflies: Keisetsu no kou wo tsumu. This means “to pursue studies by the light of fireflies and snow.” During the summer, according to an old Chinese tale, two scholars collected fireflies so they could study during the summer nights and in the winter they studied by the reflection of the stars and moon on the snow. This connection between hard study and fireflies is expressed in Yosa Buson’s (1716-1784) poem that describes students practicing letters under the light of fireflies.

手習の

顔にくれ行

ほたるかな

Tenarai no
Kao ni kureyuku
Hotaru kana

Seita is doing just the opposite, but he feels he is being a good brother and during the short time they are together, he builds happy memories and shields her from the horrors of both her mother’s death and the death all around them (such as the dead man on the beach). Yet he also flashes back to better times with his mother on the beach.

After his aunt bids him to sell his mother’s kimonos, Seita is able to bring back white rice–something of a luxury but a staple to the Japanese diet. The white rice is, however, poured into the big jar, separating the share for Seita and Setsuko and their relatives. The pouring rice transitions to memories of falling cherry blossoms and a time when Seita and Setsuko were together as a family.

Cherry blossoms represent the ephemeral. They are in bloom for only a few days before falling and that so is, in the greater view of things, like the span of a human life in comparison with the length of the world. Cultural anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney notes that “the cycle of life, death and rebirth, on the one hand, and of productive and reproductive powers, on the other.”  Under Yoritomo’s feudal system, ritual suicide (seppuku) became part of the samurai code which according to Constantine Vaporis, professor of history at the University of Maryland “Identified with the cherry blossom particularly because it fell at the moment of its greatest beauty, an ideal death.”

During the Tokugawa shogunate, Asano Naganori 浅野 長矩 (1667-1701) was sentenced to seppuku and wrote a death poem:

風さそう花よりも

なお我はまた

春の名残を

いかにとやせん

The poem refers to the wind blowing away the cherry blossoms and compares this to a young life ended. Asano Naganori is best remembered as the daimyo who was the catalyst for the events that were fictionalized in “Chūshingura” or the Faithful Retainers (More familiar to English readers as “The Forty-seven Rōnin”). During World War II, tokkotai pilots were told, “You shall die like beautiful falling cherry petals for the emperor.” Of course, Seita’s father is not a pilot. He is in the navy but their fate was little different than the air force pilots as Seita is later told.

For a while, he is able to preserve a happy existence alone with Setsuko although she is slowly dying of malnutrition. The dried frogs and soybeans are not enough for either her nor Seita. They can still appreciate the fireflies.

Hotaru koi

Atchi no mizu wa karai zo

Kotchi no mizu wa amai zo

Hotaru koi

Setsuko and Seita don’t sing the children’s song, but Seita thought this was a better, sweeter situation than where they had been with a bitterly selfish aunt. It might seem that this is a better situation, but one has to wonder if their relatives would have prevented them from starving to death or if the journey to search for relatives in Tokyo (address unknown) would have been any better.

Either way both the cherry blossoms and the fireflies represent brevity.

Fireflies and Poetry

One of the wonders that Seita and Setsuko are able to appreciate are the fireflies. One evening, Seita captures many of them and lets them drift aloft in the mosquito netting. The idea of releasing fireflies is not new; Basho wrote about it.

蚊屋の内

にほたる放して

ああ樂や

Into the mosquito netting

Releasing fireflies

Ah, a beautiful sight.

The beauty of that moment contrasts the dire straights they find themselves in. Seita tries to provide a happy home and play time with Setsuko, but even his industriousness with finding and drying frogs cannot keep Setsuko healthy.

草深く

荒たる宿の

灯火の

風にきえぬは

蛍なりけり

Kusa Fukaku
Aretaru yado no
Tomoshibi no
Kaze ni kienu ha
Hotaru narikeri

The poem is about a ruined house lost in overgrown grass where one could imagine torches in the breeze which are actually fireflies (Wakan Rōeishū 190).

As adults, we know these two cannot continue on this way. There are not enough calories and nutrition in their poor diet. Seita takes her to a doctor, but there is no medicine that can make up for the malnutrition. Yet their situation is not how all the children were uniformly suffering. From the viewpoint of other children, what they have is pitiful.  We even hear a set of girls returning to the area where they summer. Fireflies have been associated with ruined buildings.

In a last ditch effort, he buys meat, white rice and even a watermelon. In Japan, watermelon is a luxury. But it is too late. Once Setsuko dies, he tries to give her a proper death, burning both her and her doll.  He keeps some of her ashes in the tin that had once had the one luxury he had kept from his relatives: the candy. Their mother’s ring, one supposes, also is burned with her other treasures. Seita, having failed his sister, falls into a deep depression, refusing to eat the food he had bought for her, food that might have sustained him long enough to survive until the Americans occupied Japan. Seita had lost everyone he loved who loved him.

Izumi Shikibu 和泉式部 wrote about a woman who she had loved and had now forgotten her. Seeing fireflies near the Mitarashi River, wrote (Goshūishū XX: 1162) about her loss and how it almost seemed like the fireflies were like her soul that wandered out of her body.

物思へば

澤の螢も

我身より

あくがれ出づる

玉かとぞみる

Mono omoheba
Sawa no hotaru mo
Wa ga mi yori
Akugare idezuru
Tama ka to zo miru

In this death, Seita is re-united with Setsuko at the age of her death and with the treat that he had kept away from his aunt and her family, the candy. The two look out over the modern day city of Kobe, now recovered from war. At that point, I couldn’t help but recall another poem by Basho:

夏草や

つわもの　ども　が

夢のあと

Natsukusa ya

Tsuwamono domo ga

Yume no ato

Basho writes about a field of summer grasses, a field that in the past had been the scene of a great battle. But now there is nothing left to testify to the cause or the great suffering and it seems like no more than the aftermath or nebulous trace of dreams. One can easily walk the streets of modern Kobe and not remember the Genpei War or World War II and yet with “Grave of the Fireflies” we are not concerned with the warriors, we are concerned with their families and how the children suffer for the decisions of adults.