As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- Reviewer Jesuotaku observed that the fireflies at the end are the same color as the lights of the city Kobe. These fireflies have little time in their lives, and Kobe would later be devastated by an earthquake...
- Which would make this Harsher in Hindsight (relatively speaking), as the film came out in 1988 while the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck in 1995.
- When Setsuko buries the fireflies, she asks Seita ‘Why must fireflies die so young?’ while burying them. Most viewers thinking this would be the explanation for the title would be missing its true meaning. The children are the fireflies, their impromptu home looks similar to a tomb, and they both die young. ‘Grave of the Fireflies’.
- The "setsu" part of Setsuko's name means "sadness", and one of the "sei" meanings is fault. Which means our protagonists are named "Guilty boy" and "Miserable girl".
- At one point, the aunt asks why Seita and Setsuko didn't find other relatives since she seems to know they have relatives in Tokyo, how do we know those relatives are even alive? Tokyo was firebombed a week before Kobe was, (the latter is why they were forced to go to live with their aunt in the first place) so even if said relatives are alive and Seita knew how to contact them, they would, more than likely, be no better off than him and Setsuko and certainly in no position to look after them.
- It's possible Seita knew about the firebombing of Tokyo before the same thing happened to Kobe, and consequently would have lost contact with said relatives, whether they survived or not.
