The voice actor Ayano Shiraishi is primarily known for a single, iconic role performed during her childhood. She provided the voice for the character Setsuko in the 1988 Studio Ghibli animated film Grave of the Fireflies. This film, directed by Isao Takahata and based on the semi-autobiographical short story by Akiyuki Nosaka, tells the story of two siblings struggling to survive in Japan during the final months of World War II. At the time of her work on the film, Shiraishi was a child actor. She was born in May 1982 and was five years and eleven months old when she voiced the role of Setsuko. The use of an unknown young child for a voice acting role was considered unprecedented at the time. Her voice was recorded separately from the animation production, a method known as prescoring.