I have a somewhat different take on this film

Rating: 9/10 (2 April 2005)

I'd heard about this film for several years, finally saw it at Target for a bargain price, and gave it to my 10 year old daughter for Easter. We're both big Studio Gibli fans. Yes, I knew it was sad and I warned my daughter about how sad it would be. But she's fairly mature and it's about time for her to see films about some of the horrible events of history.
Grave of the Fireflies is a beautiful but frustrating film. The first five minutes caused tears to well up in my eyes and shivers to run down my spine, which I had to shake away before watching the rest of the film. I said I've got a spoiler here, but I'm not sure if it is or not. The spoiler is that despite the good heart of brother Seito, it is he who is really most responsible for his sister's death. His pride and, indeed, arrogance prevent him from taking the right steps toward protecting her. The film is anti-war and not anti-American. I actually saw it as being more anti-Japanese. I saw it as allegorical. Brother Seito represents Japan, whose pride and arrogance led to them waging war, promoting the war, and continuing the war long after it knew it would lose the war.
Yes, I'm reading something in here. But, as other reviewers have mentioned, Seito makes so many errors in judgment--not just failing to return his sister to his aunt, but also in failing to use his mother's money to buy decent food until it is too late. It just all fell together for me that Seito was more a victim of wartime Imperial Japan than of the American bombs.