An Interesting Story, but a Little Unclear and Predictable

Rating: 7/10 (26 September 2016)

Grave of the Fireflies follows a boy and his little sister as they try to live on their own after losing their family to the war.
The story itself is interesting and well presented, and there's lot's of twists and turns throughout that only increase this aspect.
There's not a whole lot to say about what's good. It's an interesting story and I think it deserves the rating I gave it, but as far as specific things it lacks in those.
Maybe this was because I watched it dubbed, but the voice actors really bothered me. Not because they didn't suit the characters, but they just read their lines with little to no expression. The city is being bombed, for crying out loud! Sound a bit more worried voice actors, come on.
Some aspects of this movie were a little confusing, specifically the air raid/bombing scenes. There were multiple points in the story where characters would go to a bomb shelter, then come out and live life normally. So, did they get bombed? Did they not? I don't understand. I eventually kind of figured it out, but regardless it was pretty unclear for a non-history junkie like myself.
Everyone says that this movie is super sad and all that, but I didn't think that at all. The ending is super predictable, and I kept wondering if maybe there'd be some crazy twist that proved why the movie was so sad, but nope. It ends exactly how you think it will. Sure, the events leading up are unfortunate, but I was never legitimately sad about any aspect of this movie, save for the lack of ability from the voice actors.
Overall Grave of the Fireflies is pretty good, but that's it. The voice acting is subpar, some aspects are a little unclear, and the ending is very predictable. Next time I'll definitely watch the subbed version. In the end I'd still recommend it, just go for subbed. It can't be any worse than the dub.