The film starred Japanese voice actors Ayane Sakura and Kōki Uchiyama, and its soundtrack included music by Makoto Yoshimori.

The European premiere of Hotarubi no Mori e was on October 8, 2011, at the Scotland Loves Animation festival, where it won the Jury Prize.

Reviewers universally praised the anime film for its beauty, simplicity, and tenderness, likening it to the works of Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli and Makoto Shinkai.

The original Hotarubi no Mori e shōjo manga[2] and subsequent film tell the story of a six-year-old girl named Hotaru Takegawa, who gets lost in a forest inhabited by a mountain spirit, as well as yōkai (strange apparitions from Japanese folklore).

The night ends in tragedy when Gin mistakenly touches a young boy who snuck into the spirit festival, though before he disappears, he and Hotaru embrace and confess their love for one another.

[8] The author, Yuki Midorikawa, explained in the postscript of the Aizoban Hotarubi no Mori e reprint that the idea for the story came to her more easily than for any other work up until that point.

[10] The supernatural love story between Hotaru and Gin is considered a starting point for Midorikawa's best known work, Natsume's Book of Friends, which also depicts ill-fated interactions between humans and yōkai (sometimes referred to as ayakashi).

[12] Prior to the anime film's theatrical release in 2011, Midorikawa published an additional chapter to the story, Hotarubi no Mori e Tokubetsuhen.

However, the popularity of Natsume's Book of Friends, which was also written by Midorikawa and developed by the same production staff, gave them the support they needed to create an anime film.

[15] The film was produced by the studio Brain's Base and directed by Takahiro Omori, starring Japanese voice actors Ayane Sakura as Hotaru and Kōki Uchiyama as Gin.

Because the story was set in the forest of a mountain god, Omori intended the art to represent a "different world" where the background scenery was obscure and the blue sky was slightly brighter than normal.

Originally intended to show Gin's life before meeting Hotaru, Omori allowed the viewer to decide its relationship in time with the main story.

[18] Hotaru's voice actor in the anime film, Ayane Sakura, was a fan of Midorikawa and owned the original manga.

Kōki Uchiyama, who played Gin, read the manga for the audition, and confessed that he was concerned at first about how to portray his character, though his work made him feel good.

The film was initially pre-scored, where the voice acting was recorded prior to the creation of the animation, but later re-recorded for the final version.

It was first reprinted on July 10, 2003, in the tankōbon entitled Hotarubi no Mori e,[21] which included four previously published romantic one-shot stories by Yuki Midorikawa.

In addition to the titular short story, the book included "Hanauta Nagaruru" (April 2003), "Kurukuru Ochiba" (November 2002), and "Hibi Fukaku" (January 2003).

[26] The film opened in Japan on September 17, 2011, playing at Theater Umeda in Osaka and Ikebukuro's Cine Libre in Tokyo.

[15][16][27] It was screened again at the Scotland Loves Animation festival in Edinburgh on October 14, along with two other short films produced by Brain's Base studio.

[29][30] Hotarubi no Mori e was one of 60 titles screened at the first Anime Contents Expo held at Makuhari Messe in Chiba in late March 2012.

[33] All tracks are written by Makoto YoshimoriThe keepsake edition manga, Aizoban Hotarubi no Mori e by Midorikawa, ranked No.

[38] The anime film of Hotarubi no Mori e was well received by its reviewers,[4][35] and likened to the works of Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli[4] and Makoto Shinkai.

Browne also wrote favorably of the story's progression, noting that its dark undertones grew heavier as the main character matured, and that the consistent characterization of Hotaru from childhood to her early teens was impressive, especially given the film's length.

She did note that sensitive viewers may interpret some aspects of the story as inappropriate, such as the initial age difference between the main characters and the way Gin punishes Hotaru as a child when she tries to touch him.

According to Yokoyama and Satou, elements of the story that exhibited strong elements of Japanese culture included the watermelon eating scene, the part where Gin hits young Hotaru over the head with a stick, and the scene where young Hotaru gets scared at night when she sees the face of a yōkai in the patterns of the wood panels on the ceiling.

The intense pressure experienced by Midorikawa early in her manga writing career was relieved as a result of the positive feedback she received upon her success with Hotarubi no Mori e.[9] In 2011, she expressed excitement for the new anime film and having the manga reprinted in a new short story collection, remarking that her attempts to write about her feelings and recent experiences in relation to Hotarubi no Mori e brought tears to her eyes.