Touching, but emotionally draining

Rating: 10/10 (20 August 2015)

To start, let me say that this is one of the most powerfully emotional films I have ever seen. Some people might be turned off by the fairly simplistic animation style, or write it off as a children's movie without really giving it a chance. While I can't speak for everyone, I believe this would be a mistake.
I won't put any plot details here, for two reasons. First, there are literally hundreds of other reviews here with that information, if you really want to know, and I believe that films have more impact if you go into them with as little information as possible. But as good as this movie is, I don't think I'll watch it again, at least not for a while. It's so powerful, so utterly affecting on a primal, visceral level, that it's a real ordeal to watch. But don't let that deter you. I believe this is a film everyone should see at least once.
The one thing Grave of the Fireflies does better than any other film I've seen is to show the real human cost of war. We all read about World War II in history class, with varying degrees of detail, but reading dry, detached stats in a book about a war that happened before most of us were born is vastly different than seeing the thing like this, up close and personal. It's too easy for us to just see the people on the losing side of our bombing raids as the enemy, and not as real humans that suffer as much or more than we do. That, more than anything else, is what endeared me to this movie. It made me think about things differently, things I was sure I already knew. That's rare in any movie, much less an animated one. So in conclusion, I definitely highly recommend Grave of the Fireflies, but don't make the mistake of thinking it's lighthearted and whimsical just because it's animated. It's heavy, profound, and deeply moving. 10/10