Ma. Nora Soriano

I am from Philippines. The setting and period of Grave of the Fireflies was being shared by our history, with our country being the arena of 2 colonizers: Japan and USA. That boy could have been my father. But his tales I would shun because he would talk about nothing to eat when us children didn't like the food. He repeated his stories of childhood encounters with the Japanese and the sufferings of his family when they constantly moved province to province to escape the Japaneses. At those time I was a kid, these tales seemed surreal and even not relevant to me. Appreciation from myself will come when I turn adult, watched Schinder's List, and topic of comfort women were revealed (circa 1990s). Those scenes of US bombing reminded me of the same tactic they used to flush out Japan army in Manila and other parts of my country. I don't understand the logic .