Cheshyhooks - Just A Messed Up Person Who's Been On Here 9 Years

"September 21st, 1945. That was the night I died."

GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (1988)

Dir. Isao Takahata

Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Not to be a killjoy (though it is what I do best) but the unsafe and rough handling of a baby Pygmy hippo in a pretty substandard Thai zoo being meme-ed into something funny and cute really shows just how much groupthink plays into public perception of animal welfare.

Moo Deng shows avoidance, threat displays and stress around her keepers that are constantly man-handling her, blasting her with a hose and harassing her. The enclosure is mostly concrete, which is horrible for her soft feet. There looks to be some substrate but there doesn’t seem to be any areas for wallowing or deep water wading.

There’s also very easy access of this hippo to the public with no places to hide. I’d love if someone could shed more light on the enclosures but from what I’ve seen it’s not great.

Also the free contact and forcing into tubs that the keepers do is only going to create an avoidant and potentially aggressive and dangerous Pygmy hippo.

But the public happily overlook that because she’s cute. It’s a similar attitude with seals too.

Stop rewarding bad husbandry with clout. Baby animals deserve agency and respect and to grow up without getting harassed and feeling the need to defend themselves constantly.

grave of the fireflies (1988)

This masterpiece of a film was absolutely devastating to watch for the first time, and it was no less devastating watching it again. The animation is absolutely amazing, and I feel like it is the most realistic style that is seen from Studio Ghibli, especially because it is unusually not set in fantasy.

Grave of the Fireflies can be read as anti-war, but it seems to use the war as a backdrop. The film focuses on how innocent lives were affected by the war, especially as it focuses on two kids. Seita's pride seemed to be his downfall in the end, as he does not come back to his aunt. His aunt's abuses were not easy to bear, and her words held the bleakness of his and Setsuko's life. It seemed like he refused to see how much they were suffering, just like how Japan overlooked the suffering of thousands of its people. He lived off scraps and in the cave, barely sustaining himself and Setsuko and resorting to thievery to keep them afloat. It is this that solidified my understanding that Seita represents Imperial Japan. Giving up and turning back was NEVER an option to Seita, and despite the multiple opportunities he had to save himself and Setsuko, he never took them and it led to the unthinkable happening.

Visuals that I will never forget is the way the bombs that floated from the distant planes resembled the fireflies that were throughout the film. Fireflies are a big motif in the film, as the beauty of them is tragic because it is so short lived. It reminds us of Setsuko's death.

Moreover, the ending scenes of the movie are just brilliant. When we cut to a scene of teenage girls coming back home after Japan's surrender, and then we are shown how Setsuko bides her time alone without her brother, we see a life that would've awaited Setsuko had she lived. We watched Setsuko like the fireflies, admiring the beauty in her innocence and mourning how brief her life was. It's gut wrenching to watch her all alone. The very end seems to speak to the audience directly, as we view Seita and Setsuko in the afterlife and he lets her sleep, looking at the camera with an almost accusatory expression. His face seemed to say: "look what you've done."

As we get a shot of modern Japan in front of the siblings, we are reminded of how Japan viewed the senseless deaths of the war: a sacrifice for the reconstruction of their nation.

Trilogy