Rainbow Fireflies (虹色ほたる～永遠の夏休み～, Niji-iro Hotaru: Eien no Natsu Yasumi; Rainbow-Colored Fireflies: The Eternal Summer Vacation) is a Japanese novel written by Masayuki Kawaguchi and published by AlphaPolis in 2007. It received a manga adaptation by Madoka Asahi, which began serialization in 2011 and was published as a single tankōbon volume by AlphaPolis in 2012. An anime film adaptation, directed by Kōnosuke Uda, was produced by Toei Animation and screened in Japanese theaters also in 2012.
Contents
Plot
On a hot summer day, a young boy named Yuta visits the dam where his father died one year ago. At the site he meets a mysterious old man. He gives the old man something to drink and later that day the old man saves him after slipping off the dam. He wakes up to discover he is 30 years in the past. There he meets a girl named Saeko, who loves fireflies, and also befriends a boy his age named Kenzo.
Characters
source:
Yuta (ユウタ, Yūta)
Voiced by: Akashi Takei (child) and Takahiro Sakurai (adult)
Saeko (さえ子)
Voiced by: Ayumi Kimura (child) and Mamiko Noto (adult)
Kenzo (ケンゾー, Kenzō)
Voiced by: Osamu Nitta (child) and Kazuya Nakai (adult)
Aotengu (青天狗)
Voiced by: Chikao Ohtsuka
Hotaru Ji (蛍じい, Hotaru Jī), "Grandpa" (お爺さん, Ojī-san)
Voiced by: Tarô Ishida
Yuta's Dad (ユウタの父, Yūta no Chichi)
Voiced by: Kenyu Horiuchi
Yuta's Mom (ユウタの母, Yūta no Haha)
Voiced by: Akemi Okamura
Shintaro (伸太郎, Shintarō)
Voiced by: Yūtarō Honjō
Tatsusaburo (辰三郎, Tatsusaburō)
Voiced by: Shūhei Hara
Grandma (おばあちゃん, Obā-chan)
Voiced by: Ikuko Tani
Saeko's Father (さえ子のお父さん, Saeko no Otō-san)
Voiced by: Masahiko Tanaka
Saeko's Brother (さえ子のお兄ちゃん, Saeko no Onī-chan)
Voiced by: Yūma Ōkura
Mr. Yoshizawa (芳澤さん, Yoshizawa-san)
Voiced by: Yūki Yagi
Media
Novel
The novel was written by Masayuki Kawaguchi. The front cover for the original hardcover edition was illustrated by manga artist Kaoru Maruyama. It was first published as a single tankōbon hardcover volume by AlphaPolis on July 30, 2007, under its main imprint. Three years later, it was reprinted into two smaller bunkobon paperback volumes, dubbed the "Top Volume" (上巻, Jōkan) and the "Bottom Volume" (下巻, Gekan), on July 20, 2010, under the AlphaPolis Bunko imprint; each volume featured a different crop of the original hardcover's front-cover artwork by Kaoru Maruyama, with the top volume's cover focusing on the boy climbing the stairs and the bottom volume's cover focusing on the beetle crawling on the tilted tree.
To promote the then-upcoming animated film adaptation, a new tankōbon softcover edition, dubbed the "Lightweight Edition" (軽装版, Keisō-ban), was published by AlphaPolis on March 15, 2012, retaining the hardcover's Kaoru Maruyama cover artwork but now enclosing it within an ornate white frame (typical of most AlphaPolis keisō-ban reissues).
For the seventeenth anniversary of the novel, a "kids' bunkobon" version for younger readers was published by AlphaPolis under its Kizuna Bunko imprint on July 15, 2024, split into top and bottom volumes like the 2010 regular bunkobon reissue. Larger than the regular bunkobon but smaller than the tankōbon, each volume featured a larger typeface and in-text furigana to aid elementary-school readers in reading the kanji. Both volumes included new artworks drawn by illustrator Chakotata (ちゃこたた), including the cover artworks (Top's cover featuring Yuta and Bottom's cover featuring Saeko) which were enclosed within an ornate orange frame that is characteristic of Kizuna Bunko books; when both volumes were placed side by side (Top on the left and Bottom on the right), both covers formed a full artwork revealing Yuta and Saeko running on a field while clasping hands together.
Manga
A manga adaptation, illustrated by Madoka Asahi, was serialized on the AlphaPolis Web Manga website from July 2011 to early 2012, encompassing eleven chapters. These chapters were collected into a single tankōbon paperback volume and published by AlphaPolis under the AlphaPolis Comics imprint on May 11, 2012, a week before the animated film adaptation, which the manga helped promote, was set to be premiered in theaters.
Animated film
The animated film adaptation by Toei Animation was directed by Kōnosuke Uda, with screenplay written by Kei Kunii and cinematography by Masao Ōnuki. The music was composed by Masataka Matsutoya; his wife, legendary singer-songwriter Yumi Matsutoya, performed the theme song "Ai to Tōi Hi no Mirai e" (愛と遠い日の未来へ).
It was screened in Japanese theaters on May 19, 2012, two months after the lightweight-edition tankōbon re-release of the novel, and a week after the manga was published.
Staff
Directed by Kōnosuke Uda
Based on the original work by Masayuki Kawaguchi
Screenplay by Kei Kunii
Character design and animation direction by Hisashi Mori
Music by Masataka Matsutoya
Theme song "Ai to Tōi Hi no Mirai e" by Yumi Matsutoya
Art by Kentarō Akiyama
Art direction and color design by Seiki Tamura
Screen design and layout direction by Takaaki Yamashita
Cinematography by Masao Ōnuki
Edited by Shinichi Fukumitsu
Marketing by Noriyuki Taniguchi
Produced by Hiroshi Takahashi
Planning by Atsutoshi Umezawa
Executive producer: Munehisa Higuchi