Grave of the Fireflies [Paperback]

On its release in 1988,Grave of the Firefliesriveted audiences with its uncompromising drama. Directed by Isao Takahata at Studio Ghibli and based on an autobiographical story by Akiyuki Nosaka, the story of two Japanese children struggling to survive in the dying days of the Second World War unfolds with a gritty realism unprecedented in animation.Grave of the Fireflieshas since been hailed as a classic of both anime and war cinema. In 2018, USA Today ranked it the greatest animated film of all time.

Yet Ghibli's sombre masterpiece remains little analysed outside Japan, even as its meaning is fiercely contested - Takahata himself lamented that few had grasped his message. In the first book-length study of the film in English, Alex Dudok de Wit explores its themes, visual devices and groundbreaking use of animation, as well as the political context in which it was made. Drawing on untranslated accounts by the film's crew, he also describes its troubled production, which almost spelt disaster for Takahata and his studio.

Grave of the Fireflies(1988) is a Studio Ghibli masterpiece. In this book, author Alex Dudo de Wit analyses the film's pioneering use of animation and the nuanced treatment of its subject that earned it 'classic' status.Alex Dudok de Witis the Associate Editor at Cartoon Brew. He is an animation correspondent for Sight & Sound. His writing has also appeared inVulture, Little White Lies, The Telegraph, The i, The Independent, Time Out, Index on Censorshipand elsewhere, including specialist animation publications likeSkwiglyandASIFA Magazine. He also translates from Japanese as part of Art Translators Collective. He is based in London, UK.

A little jewel of a book, concise, lucid, informative, moving. The Times

Alex Dudok de Wit provides a valuable service to Japanese animation studies by writing the first book-length analysis in English of Grave of the Fireflies. Let us lÃ!