May 12, 2011: Movie Review “Grave of the Fireflies”

I’ve never been a huge anime fan, but I try to stay open to film styles in general. I remember seeing “Spirited Away” (2001) in theaters and enjoyed it, so when I found consistent high ratings for “Grave of the Fireflies” (1988) I was intrigued.

The story is set place  in Japan, 1945, at the end of WWII. The main characters are Seita, a boy of about 12 years old and his sister, Setsuko who is about 3-4 years old. I’m not giving anything away by saying that the whole film is a series of events before the two children’s death, as Seita’s first words recount that this is the night he died and with Setsuko’s absence, her death is implied as well. So, I want to be upfront and say that “Grave of the Fireflies” is not the most “cheery” film out there, but rather, is a poignant study of effects of war on innocents and the nobility of humans struggling under hard conditions.

The city of Kobe, where Seita and Setsuko live, is firebombed and they lose their mother. Their father is absent serving in the military, so they are sent to their aunt’s house in Nishinomiya. The unsympathetic aunt plays a kind of subtle wicked stepmother who resents the added burden of the extra kids in a time of shortages of war. Seita picks up on this, and has the idea of moving he and his sister to a nearby shelter in the woods. At first, this is a kind of an adventure which gives the children freedom to explore  life in kind of Tom Sawyer way. They have time to establish themselves, experience nature and reminisce about the better times of their life. They find  a nearby field full of  fireflies that they capture to fill their shelter with their light. The next day, as Setsuko is burying the dead fireflies, Seita finds out that the aunt has told Setsuko that their mother is dead (something Seita desperately wanted to spare Setsuko.) Eventually, conditions decay. Despite Seita’s best efforts, Setsuko is wasting away from malnutrition and soon she dies.

Despite this rather morose setup, “Grave of the Fireflies” is, surprisingly, a film about the beauty of those simple moments of life that we all take for granted: playing on the beach, the sour taste of  pickled plum, chasing butterflies, the playfulness of our children, the sweet taste of fruit drops, the memories that fill our life…and if you’ve ever spent a night in a field of fireflies you understand the magic of nature. All this, and more, is packed into “Grave of the Fireflies” while not ignoring the sadness inherent in life.

“Grave of the Fireflies” is not quite a perfect film. Viewers will find at least one major logic flaw that momentarily  detracts from the story line, but what the film lacks in logic, it makes up for in heart. One comment that I have read over and over is that “Grave of the Fireflies” is one of those films that sits with the viewer for some time after. It is based on the novel by Akiyuki Nosaka who, during the war, lost his younger sister to malnutrition in a similar way that Seita loses Setsuko. The novel was Nosaka’s way to come to terms with this.

I’ve always considered that fireflies were (at least partial)  inspiration to the plethora of Edwardian faery stories. Certainly, any creature that manufactures its own light to shine as a beacon, as it flies through the night air, is envocative of many things to the human imagination: magical spirits, ghosts, the soul, etc. As she is burying the fireflies, Setsuko asks Seita “Why do all the fireflies die so soon?” A very human question indeed…but, of course, we are all fireflies.

June 15, 2010: Hello…er..ummm…Hello Kitty!

Of course, I don’t exactly live under a rock, but I sometimes can be very out of touch with popular culture. I’ve managed to know of the popular Japanese character of Hello Kitty for an excess of 30 years but not to know much about her, despite having my good friend Lisa, who has been a big fan for as long as I have known her. But meeting my two new young friends, Nicole and Katie, last weekend, and finding that they were both HK fans as well, I thought it was way past time to find out a little bit more about the HK phenomena! Thank the world for Netflix. I ordered the most appealing HK title: “Hello Kitty Goes to the Movies” and the next day I was able to watch it.

If there could be anyone possibly less informed than I about Hello Kitty, she is a “manga” (print) and “anime” (moving image) cartoon character, drawn in a minimalistic style, first designed by Kuko Shimizu. She is portrayed as a young white cat with a red bow attached to her left ear and wears clothes. She is often drawn with no visible mouth. She lives with her mom and dad and her twin sister, Mimmy, who looks very much like HK but wears different clothes and has the bow on the right ear. In cartoons, HK sounds like a 4-5 year old girl. She appears to be adventuresome, kind, and thoughtful in personality In the cartoons she is shown having an extended family and a bevy of friends which she relates to and has adventures with. HK is supposed to be a Japanese bobtail cat. That’s a good choice for HK, as these cats are an active, inintelligent, and affectionate breed. Bobtails have soft voices and are said to “sing” as they are very “talkative” to their human owners (whom they have great affection for.) They learn tricks easily and are known to even “fetch” for their owners. They have soft, silky, medium-length hair. They can be any color, but tend to have a lot of white mixed with calico. Their most distinguishing characteristic is a short, “bobbed” tail, looking more like a rabbit’s tail than that of a cat. In rare cases, they can have different colored eyes (appearing in the more white cats, for some reason) one being blue (which the Japanese see as “silver”) and one being yellow (Japanese see as “gold”.) Kind of like a feline David Bowie. The bobtail, coincidentally, is also the auspicious symbol seen in a lot of Japanese businesses called the “maneki neko” (the “inviting cat.”)

I found “Hello Kitty Goes to the Movies” to be a good introduction to HK. In the series, she doesn’t so much as “go” to the movies as recreate famous movies in her “Furry Tail Theater” and as such making them more palatable to a younger audience. In “The Wizard of Paws” HK’s remake of “The Wizard of Oz” there was none of the trauma of the evil witch and the flying monkeys that still gives me shivers to this day. Her shows are full of punning “kitty-isms” like when she gets to Oz she says “I guess, I’m not in Catfish (Kansas) anymore!” I was surprised at a couple of phrases of well placed social commentary. One, is when HK and her family are playing aliens visiting Earth (the complexity of  a”show within a show” was interesting.) As HK is running off, her mom tells her “Watch out for the natives! They’re dangerous! I know…I’ve seen their TV shows!

So, I gave HK high marks for complexity and entertainment and being a part of the “kawaii” (cuteness) culture of Japan, she certainly is cute, but ultimately, I was very concerned about the merchandising of Hello Kitty as a product. This is nothing new, as any popular media figure is going to draw merchandising of some sort. Still, Sanrio Co. Ltd., who owns the rights to HK, generates $1 billion annually in licensing arrangements from everything from school supplies to fashion accessories!

I appreciate the chance to know a little bit more about modern culture, particularly as it gives me a chance (by proxy) to know my new young friends a little bit better, but I do hope that they are able to resist the temptation to fall into the draw of this merchandising, and resist the temptation to own things. I hope they will find cuteness and entertainment in all the manifestations of life, particularly the ones they find organically in friends, family, and nature.