The movie opens on a young boy, who tells you that September 1, 1945, was the day he died. [That is about a month after Japan surrendered, ending WWII.] Going to a dirty train station, you see him lying there in the slums, whispering his sister's name - Setsuko. He dies there in the dirty shadows of the station. When an old candy tin is removed from his clothing, gray ash spills out. The light of fireflies illuminate the field that it opened in, and his spirit - Seita - and Setsuko are revealed. The movie is essentially a flashback of the last part of his life with Setsuko during the war. After his home burns down due to the firebombings, he flees away with his sister to his aunt's. His mother was burned alive, and his father is away at sea as a navy captain. Seita struggles to keep himself and his sister alive, but we already know that they die.
Incredibly beautiful, this movie shows you the path he chose for he and his sister. He was a teenager; she was barely five. A realistic movie on what he had to do to survive, it shows the horrors that he suffered during war. The most depressing thing while watching this was the knowledge that sooner or later, the laughing, little girl would die. More so than any other anime, these people were real humans - in fact, this movie is based on someone's autobiography. The plot was sad; predictable, but in no means is that a downfall. It was incredibly beautiful and shocking - why, his little sister literally died of malnutrition. It was a matter of being unable to stop the inevitable, and it was all the more horrific.
Seita was a loving older brother - all he wanted was for his sister and himself to live. He pampered her as best he could, for what else could he do? Setsuko was barely out of diapers as it was. Setsuko is the picture of the little sister of a friend I know, and just the same age too - having that close connection made this movie all the more haunting to me. Everyone in this movie is someone that you can imagine in real life, and this movie really makes you realize that. There are no faults with this movie that I think anyone could really come up with. The issues of life, death, and war that it covers are really amazing - amazing, for how realistic it was.
