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Poster for Grave of the Fireflies
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Grave of the Fireflies Live Action Trailer

Grave of the Fireflies(1988)
Released
1988 · FILM

Grave of the Fireflies

In post‑bombed Kobe, teenage brother Seita fights to protect his fragile sister from starvation and a hostile aunt while haunted by their mother's death and the ruins of war.

“Why do fireflies have to die so soon?”

Directed by
Isao Takahata, Norihiko Suto
Written by
Akiyuki Nosaka, Isao Takahata
Rated
MPA · Not Rated
Runtime
88 min
Language
JA
AnimationDramaWar
Streaming on
  • Paramount+

Synopsis

In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Director of Photography
Writers
Directors

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

A crew of 291+ credited

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Takeshi SeyamaShot by Nobuo KoyamaScored by Michio MamiyaSound by Christopher Bourque

Box Office

1988 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.2× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$842K

Budget$3.7M
Worldwide gross$842K
break-even (2.5×)

Full synopsis

Also known as

  • Die letzten Glühwürmchende
  • Hotaru no hakade
  • Grave of the Firefliesen
  • Hotaru no hakaen
  • La tumba de las luciérnagases
  • Le Tombeau des luciolesfr
  • Una tomba per le luccioleit
  • (French)Le tombeau des lucioles
  • (Bulgarian)Там, където светулките намират вечен покой
Release dates around the world5 countries · show
  • CanadaApr 16, 1988
  • JapanApr 16, 1988
  • South KoreaApr 5, 1989
  • United KingdomApr 7, 1989
  • SerbiaApr 12, 1989

Production & Distribution

Production companies
ShinchoshaStudio Ghibli
Distributors
Edko FilmsFilm fra Sør DistribusjonGKIDSHoyts DistributionLes Films du Paradoxe
Other companiesToho, APU Studio, Audio Planning U, Crush Digital Video, Nippon Television Network (NTV)

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