May War Never Come Again - Akira Nosaka, Grave of the Fireflies

Grave of the Fireflies is a collection of novellas by Akira Nosaka that contains six novels: The Tomb of the Fireflies, American SheepSeed, Scorched Earth, Brooding Dead Babies, Tango, and Poor Kids.

All of them reflect the suffering of the Japanese people during world war II and after world war, and depict the miserable life of Japanese civilians who suffered from the war in a white brushwork, expressing a strong anti-war sentiment.

The character settings of these short stories are similar, and the protagonist's family members generally include his father who died in battle, his sick mother, and his young sister, which may project a shadow of the author's real experience.

The war is merciless, and the world is cold.

The brother lived with his young sister, concealed the news of his mother's death, pretended that his mother was still there, coaxed his sister to be happy, went to a relative's house to secretly put his mother's ashes outside, relatives ate and drank soup, took their mother's clothes in exchange for white rice but did not let them eat, and the life under the fence they had become a burden to relatives.

They sang happily in the rain with tattered oil-paper umbrellas, and wrote letters to their fathers, helpless but hopeful. Maybe my father was reunited with my mother in the war. A small box of fruit candy, he was not willing to eat a single one, put water into the sugar box for his sister to drink, at night his sister cried and was disliked by his aunt, he walked with his sister on his sister like a mother to coax his sister to sleep.

They had no source of livelihood, they were caught stealing things and were beaten to the point of being bruised, the tears of the aggrieved teenagers of the teenagers, the long sea of people, how humble their existence was, he was just a teenager just a brother. He took advantage of the war to steal things, and he kept shouting "Explode it" And his wish was to steal good and useful things by taking advantage of the war.

Whether he was in love with war or not, or maybe he just didn't want to suffer alone. My sister was weak and dying for a long time, unable to distinguish between mud balls and rice balls, unable to distinguish between marbles and sugar, and after eating the last bite of watermelon, she never woke up.

He was holding his sister's emaciated body, his mother was gone, his father was gone, his sister was gone, the war was over, he had nothing. The watermelons my sister had eaten were crawling with ants, and their lives were as good as ants.

The novel was inspired by the Kobe air raid that Akiru Nosaka encountered during his middle school years. At that time, he fled with his one-year-old sister.

As a young man, he did not do his best to take care of his sister like Kiyota in "Grave of the Fireflies", but instead slapped her because he could not stand her crying. Later, her sister died of insufficient nutrition, and her thin appearance was deeply imprinted in Akira Nosaka's heart.

"Grave of the Fireflies" was created by Nozaka with remorse.

Akira Nosaka's collection of novels is a mirror that reflects the real state of Japanese society during and after the war. The fireworks of human nature, struggling in the darkness of suffering, flickered faintly.