Huynh Graves for Everyone

Grave of the Fireflies was a really touching movie, but the way it was presented was very monotone. It was monotone because the dramatic scenes and the action scenes were not as overly-emphasized as we are used to in today's movies. The fire bombings weren't filled with gigantic explosions and all, but they still had an impact on the movie's environment. This is probably how it truly went down in Japan during the war taken from the author's personal experiences. One moment there was an entire town, and everyone fleeing for safety, and the next there is nothing but rubble as far as the eye can see. The main point was brought across, just not in a way for entertainment, more like an educational sense.

Cover art taken from imdb.com

Throughout the entire movie, you can see the brother-sister bond holding strong through everything. Seita never once forgets about Setsuko's well being, and in fact, it's his entire purpose for the film. His survival depends on the survival of his last family member, Setsuko. From the beginning he is always carrying Setsuko and taking care of her, he also does all that he can to make sure she is happy. The small happiness that he runs out of is the fruit drops. Nearly all of them are eaten by Setsuko, which is fine with Seita because her happiness is his happiness. Seita even starts becoming desperate by stealing food for his sister, and looting houses as the residents evacuate for fire bombings. Setsuko feels the same for her older brother, as she always tries to help out around their home which is a bomb shelter. She cleans the shelter out, and makes mud food for herself and Seita. She doesn't know dirt is not edible, but despite that, she never forgets to make Seita a portion as well.
Society isn't as kind as the brother-sister relationship. You see that most people are indifferent to death during the movie, and it's probably caused by the war. Even children are not sheltered during the war time in this movie, because the aunt takes out her frustration on Seita and Setsuko. She gives them less food and crap quality portions at the dinner table. Even after Seita tell his aunt about he didn't want to tell Setsuko about their mother's death, she goes and tells Setsuko behind his back and complains when Setsuko cries at night. The aunt obviously can't piece two and two together. Another scene that illustrates this is when the farmer catches Seita stealing food, and even gives the reason and evidence that Setsuko is sick and needs food. The farmer goes on to beat Seita senseless, and even takes him to the police. The policeman doesn't do anything to Seita, which is good and bad because he didn't get arrested, but he also didn't get any help. A similar situation happens with a doctor who diagnoses Setsuko with malnutrition and that she needs is food, but he does nothing to help her get better.
The children are ephemeral and immortal because their lives are so short compared to the average life span of a human being, but they live on looking back on their past. The two children have extremely hard struggles during their short lives and eventually die without anyone caring except each other. "Mono no aware" comes into play here because the film is the last struggles of the two children, and it is a beautiful thing to see. The film shows them looking back on the past and future, just observing. This is a way to say that even though we don't remember them, they remember us. Eventually people will all die because it's an inevitable fact, so somewhere in the world, there are graves for everyone.

Huynh Death: A Part of Life

In American society, death is something of a taboo. It's just something you don't openly talk about ion public and is never a good topic to bring up in a conversation. Death is avoided, and life is expected; once life is threatened, everything gets really serious. The Japanese openly embrace death and see it as just reality. They don't dance around the subject because it's just a part of life, something that is inevitable. Why avoid something that is inevitable? Life is celebrated in Japan, and life is lived to the fullest, and hopefully with honor. They have many different ways to die. Natural death is there, and is expected, so nothing too big there, except for maybe the close family and friends. Death via suicide is another story. Suicide is a common thing in Japan and it happens after dishonor or a great failure of some sort. It's kind of the easy way out, but it's something along the lines of removing their useless self from existence to get out of the way for other people. In America, death is a big thing, but suicide is like really bad. It's seen as the coward's way out, and is looked upon really badly. There's also death in war, which in the Japanese sense is one of the greatest ways to go, because you have so much honor dying for your country. The American sense is the same, but the main difference is seppuku, which is stomach-cutting. One will preserve one's honor by committing seppuku to not be captured and become a POW and being tortured to spill secrets of the army, and also in some cases to not hinder the unit's mission success.

In Harp of Burma death surrounds the group of soldiers as they try and complete their mission during WWII. It's not realized until the end, where you find out why one of the soldiers stays back instead of returning home with his comrades. He stays back as a traveling monk to give all of the fallen soldiers a proper burial, and he says that it may take him his entire lifetime to complete, but he believes that was the reason he was sent to Burma. The amount of bodies shown were endless, and they were all rotting out in the open with nobody to care for them. The Japanese soldiers that died at the American hospital were all buried together with no names on the tombstone, and a quick prayer service was given to them. During war, death is to be expected, but one cannot understand how bad unless one was there to experience it in war itself.

Taken from houseofanime.org

The movie Letters From Iwo Jima covered death as well, but in an entirely different view. They had a scene where a soldier was blinded by a grenade, and instead of trying to survive with all his might, he committed suicide. It may seem like a coward's way out, but his actions were for his comrades and Japan. He didn't want to hinder the unit's mobility which would be a great disadvantage for them, and he didn't want to be captured as a POW by the Americans and be forced to give information about the unit's missions and tactical strategies. Another scene was where the captain who was wounded and trying to escape called it quits and asked his assistant to behead him. This plan failed when an American killed the assistant as he was about to give the death blow, but then a soldier who owed his life to the captain 3 times over came along and helped him commit suicide with his own Colt .45. This aspect was a way of dying with honor on his homeland of Japan. These are all aspects of death that are carried out in different ways, and eventually we will see these aspects of death during our lifetime, that's because death is just a part of life.