Grave of the Fireflies (Live Action)

[niko]

I watched the "Grave of the Fireflies" live-action drama over the weekend, and - hmmmmmm....

The beefing up of the aunt's side of the story was more effective than I expected, in some ways.   Although her *actions* towards Seita and Setsuko are still reprehensible, her motivations are at least expanded in a way that made me feel a bit of sympathy for her plight.

The problem I have with this, though, is that the aunt seems to be left off the hook by the filmmakers for her actions.  There's this sense at the end that "Oh, isn't this sad, but she did what she needed to do to survive, so she can't really be faulted for that."  I think it cheapens the tragedy of the story to have her come out of it as some sort of "sadder but wiser" person who we never see have any real regret for her actions, and even her daughter, who calls her on her evilness, coming away seeming to realize that her mother shouldn't be blamed for what happened to Seita and Setsuko.  It really kinda spoiled any good-will I had for the movie up to that point.

It kinda reminds me of the Kino's Journey incident where a girl's father is about to stab her and a passing traveller saves her.  The villagers all stand around being shocked for a minute that they've just killed an innocent bystander, then start convincing themselves that it was all just a tragic accident - so terribly sad, but what could they have done, after all?  With this "Grave of the Fireflies" movie being made to commemorate the anniversary of the end of the war, it feels a bit too revisionist for my liking...

Comments

[happyaddict.livejournal.com]

Hi~ I came here from ydaily after you posted that yummy One Piece dj. I'm interested in translating (maybe even asking an editor to scanlate) it. Can we get permission from you to do it with your scans? And if possible, do you have higher quality scans? I normally don't go out asking people, but I don't normally see such good OP djs XD.

[nikojen.livejournal.com]

Oh, hell yes! :D I'd be thrilled to have it trans/scan-lated.

I didn't keep the original scans, but I can certainly re-do them. I already busted the binding on the book in the first go-round (*sob*), so it won't hurt anything. I'm not too savvy on the whole image-quality thing, though. Is there a particular setting or dpi or something I should shoot for?

[happyaddict.livejournal.com]

I talked to an editor and she said 300dpi for scanning is good. She said she could help scanlate too :D, so we're gonna wait for your scans. IM me at happyaddictions and we'll talk about it some more when the time comes.

[nikojen.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to be a pathetic noob, but when you say "IM", will any IM program work, or do I need a specific one?

I don't think I've every actually used IM, honestly.

(My email is niko at neo dot rr dot com, if emails more convenient to discuss this further...)

[happyaddict.livejournal.com]

No no, my fault. I meant AIM XD; And not everyone has that. I'll email you.