The last fireflies
| Anime movie | |
|---|---|
| title | The last fireflies |
| Original title | 火 垂 る の 墓 |
| transcription | Hotaru no Haka |
 | |
| Country of production |
 Japan
|
| original language | Japanese |
| Publishing year | 1988 |
| Studio | Studio Ghibli |
| length | 88 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Isao Takahata |
| idea | Akiyuki Nosaka (template) |
| script | Isao Takahata |
| production | Tōru Hara |
| music | Michio Mamiya |
The last fireflies ( Japanese 火 垂 る の 墓 , Hotaru no Haka , "The grave of the fireflies ", alternative title: The last fireflies ) is an anime film by Studio Ghibli and directed by Isao Takahata . It is based on the partially autobiographical short story "The Grave of Fireflies" (published in Japanese under the same title as the film) by Akiyuki Nosaka , whose sister starved to death in World War II , published in 1967 .
action
The last firefly takes place in the final phase of the Second World War in Japan and tells of the desperate struggle of the fourteen-year-old boy Seita and his four-year-old sister Setsuko for survival in the bombed-out city of Kobe . The tragic end is anticipated right from the start: Seita dies completely emaciated and unnoticed in a dark corner of a station waiting room. The film begins with the sentence "I died on September 21, 1945" and then shows a station attendant who throws away an old tattered candy can in front of the boy, causing a number of fireflies to fly into the night. In a large flashback ( retrospective ), the viewer experiences the individual stages of suffering of the siblings.
When their mother dies after a bomb attack on the port city of Kobe , Seita and Setsuko first move in with their aunt. Since the boy does not participate in the reconstruction, but prefers to play with his sister, the aunt gives them less and less to eat and otherwise treats them unfairly. The children decide to take care of themselves from now on and move to an old cave-like bunker outside the city.
Although Seita starts stealing food from vegetable fields and looting houses during bombing raids in order to sell the stolen things, food for him and Setsuko is becoming increasingly scarce. Finally, the little girl died of severe febrile illness due to malnutrition and gets by her brother a lonely cremation .
Seita, who shortly before first learned of the capitulation of Japan and thus also of his father's death (he had served in the now defunct Imperial Navy ), finally loses his courage to live, because his father was the last spark of hope for him.
background
Akiyuki Nosaka's short story was published in October 1967 in the literary magazine All Yomimono published by Bungei Shunjū . Nosaka received the Naoki Prize for this and for America Hijiki about life in the immediate post-war period , published a month earlier . Both texts were then summarized in book form in February 1968 with four other short stories in the short story book Amerika Hijiki / Hotaru no Haka ( ISBN 4-10-111203-7 ). The stories were published in German as The Grave of Fireflies and Algae from America in 1992 by Rowohlt in a translation by Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit .
Instead of the usual spelling for hotaru, 蛍 'glow worms, fireflies', the title uses the deviating characters 火 垂 る , which are actually read differently ( Jukujikun ) and mean “fire falling from the sky”, which means that the title can alternatively be used as “The grave of the bomb hail ”.
The Japanese broadcaster Nippon Television made a feature film in 2005 that shows the events from the point of view of the aunt played by Nanako Matsushima . The film first aired on November 1, 2005.
The candies sucked by Setsuko and Seita in some scenes are the Sakuma Drops that have been sold since 1908 . Today the cans occasionally have Setsuko as a motif.
publication
The film was released in Japanese cinemas on April 16, 1988, where it was shown in double screenings with My Neighbor Totoro .
The film was first released on May 17, 2002 in Germany by the anime label Anime Virtual (now Kazé) on VHS and subsequently on August 27, 2002 on the then relatively new medium DVD . On October 22, 2004 a new edition took place as a Collector's Edition with enclosed trading cards, an art book and the short story on which the film is based. A renewed DVD release as a deluxe edition with a gallery, an interview with Isao Takahata was made, Featurettes and booklet on November 26, 2007. On September 27, 2013, the film was released on Blu-ray at Kazé in traditional Studio Ghibli Blu -ray Collection -Edition.
synchronization
The German dubbing came about in 2000, by Interopa Film GmbH in Berlin .
| role | Japanese speaker ( seiyū ) | German speaker |
|---|---|---|
| mother | Yoshiko Shinohara | Ulrike Stürzbecher |
| Seita | Tsutomu Tatsumi | Gerrit Schmidt-Foss |
| Setsuko | Ayano Shiraishi | Adak Azdasht |
| aunt | Akemi Yamaguchi | Rita Engelmann |
| doctor | Wolfgang Ostberg | |
| Farmer | Ulrich Voss | |
| cousin | Maria Sumner | |
| Timber merchant | Frank Ciazynski | |
| chandler | Alexander Duke | |
| Obayashi | Lothar Blumhagen | |
| police officer | Hasso Zorn | |
| Subtenant | Thomas Nero Wolff |
reception
Most of the reviews were very positive.
“A touching anime that relentlessly thematizes the horrors of war and reflects them in the eyes of the children; a cartoon of great seriousness, which leaves everything childlike of the genre behind and opens up a new audience to the genre without having to resort to drastic depictions of violence and sexist generalities. "
"The animated film from Ghibli achieves an enormous emotional intensity, so that inevitably a feeling of consternation, sadness and bewilderment arises."
'Grave of the Fireflies' is an emotional experience so powerful that it forces a rethinking of animation.
"The Last Fireflies" is such a powerful emotional experience that it almost forces a reassessment of cartoons. "
The film was rated “Top Video” by the German Children's and Youth Film Center . The lexicon of international film recommended an age limit of 16 years from the age of 6 due to the relentless portrayal of the horrors of war, contrary to the FSK classification.
literature
- Akiyuki Nosaka: The grave of the fireflies. Two stories . Rowohlt, 1992, ISBN 3-499-13109-9
- 野 坂 昭 如 『ア メ リ カ ひ じ き ・ 火 垂 る の 墓』 . Shinchōsha, 1968, ISBN 4-10-111203-7
Web links
- Grave of the Fireflies in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- Grave of the Fireflies atRotten Tomatoes(English)
- The last fireflies in the online film database
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nosaka Akiyuki. (No longer available online.) In: All of Naoki Sanjugo Award. Archived from the original on May 18, 2015 ; Retrieved May 13, 2015 (Japanese).
- ↑ s. Epilogue to the German edition or "The grave of the light beetles" by Akiyuki Nosaka. In: japan-literatur.blogspot.de. July 18, 2012, accessed May 13, 2015 .
- ↑ The last fireflies. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Ulf Lepelmeier: The last fireflies. Retrieved April 24, 2012 .
- ↑ Roger Ebert : Grave of the Fireflies. In: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/ . March 19, 2000, accessed April 24, 2012 .
- ^ Lexicon of International Films , p. 1868