Danica Davidson
February 10, 2025 
There is sad news coming out of Japan as we learn of the passing of composer Michio Mamiya, who died of pneumonia late last year. He was 95 at the time of death, and his family has already held both a vigil and funeral for him.
Mamiya was interested in music for a long time. He attended the Tokyo Music School and then organized a composer group, going on to claim 1958’s Mainichi Music Award with his group for their “Composition for Chorus No. 1.”
Later in his life he did work as an anime composer, most famously for the World War II film Grave of the Fireflies. He was additionally behind the music for Horus – Prince of the Sun, Gauche the Cellist, and Tenguri, the Boy of the Plains.
Past his anime work, he wrote chamber pieces, opera, choral works and more.
His music touched people around the world.
GKIDS licensed Grave of the Fireflies, and gave this description for it:
Grave of the Fireflies Plot
As the Empire of the Sun crumbles upon itself and a rain of firebombs falls upon Japan, the final death march of a nation is echoed in millions of smaller tragedies. This is the story of Seita and his younger sister Setsuko, two children born at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and now cast adrift in a world that lacks not the care to shelter them, but simply the resources. Forced to fend for themselves in the aftermath of fires that swept entire cities from the face of the earth, their doomed struggle is both a tribute to the human spirit and the stuff of nightmares. Beautiful, yet at times brutal and horrifying. Based on the retellings of survivor Nosaka Akiyuki and directed by Isao Takahata (co-founder, with Hayao Miyazaki, of Japan’s legendary Studio Ghibli,) Grave Of The Fireflies has been universally hailed as an artistic and emotional tour de force. Now digitally remastered and restored, it is one of the rare films that truly deserves to be called a masterpiece.
Source: ANN
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
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