Q: How does cultural differences affect the representation of children in war films, shown with the films Grave of the Fireflies (1988, Takahata, Japan) and Empire of the Sun (1987, Spielberg, USA)? 

Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun (1987) and Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies (1988) are two incredibly distinctive war films. They are instantly recognisable among their contemporaries, with Empire of the Sun’s impressive and respectful displays of planes and their pilots and Grave of the Fireflies’ depressing narrative of a slow destruction of a child’s life. I chose these films because I enjoy these films and I believe there can be an interesting comparison between the two. Empire of the Sun follows Jamie “Jim” Graham, as he lives through the events of the Second World War. He gets lost from his parents when the Japanese invade Shanghai and, after a series of events that involve him meeting two American hustlers, gets put into an internment camp where he lives for the rest of the war until Japan surrenders and he is reunited with his family at the end of the movie. Grave of the Fireflies, however, follows two siblings, Seita and Setsuko, through a flashback spanning the film depicting their attempt to survive in the city of Kobe after it has been firebombed by Allied forces. After losing their house and mother in these runs, they move in with an aunt that openly dislikes them. They end up leaving her and live in an abandoned bomb shelter, where Seita starts stealing food as Setsuko slowly dies of malnutrition. At the end of the movie, Setsuko dies and Seita holds a funeral for her, later dying of malnutrition himself at a train station as shown at the start of the film.