A sure candidate for the most overrated animated work ever.

Rating: 3/10 (12 June 2008)

The word "masterpiece" is thrown around quite a bit. That word should be reserved so that it has merit, but its consistent overuse has reduced the power of what the word once meant. The criterion for earning such a branding should be quite difficult to attain. In the world of anime, nothing has been called a masterpiece as fervently as Grave of the Fireflies. The usually war-torn world of critics is in almost unanimous agreement that the film is "powerful", "tragic", and a "masterpiece". Even Roger Ebert thinks so. All these people couldn't possibly be wrong, could they? I mean, Roger Ebert is famous! Grave of the Fireflies is the story of Seita and Setsuko, a pair of children who find themselves bewildered by the chaos of World War II. Fire bombings have claimed their mother and forced them out of their home, and now they must migrate from one place to another. For a time, they live with their aunt, who really isn't a half bad person, but is painted by the protagonist (through the writing, which feels as though it was written by a resentful teenager) to be a horrible, oppressive witch. Because Seita is so indolent and does nothing but eat, his aunt eventually gives him the choice to either start working or leave.
Seita then consciously decides, knowing full well what possible consequences lie ahead, to leave his aunt with his little sister in tow. He decides to live outside with his sister, willingly exposing her to the elements and possible starvation. What happens next is no surprise; the children eventually starve to death, the audience cries, and people shout "masterpiece!". But this is no spoiler; the writer tactfully decided to remove any suspense from the story by letting you know the children were going to die in the opening scene of the movie.
Now, children dying is quite sad, of course. But that's because they're children. Unless you're some kind of heartless mooncalf, people sympathize pretty well with children on a very fundamental level without them having to gain your adoration through development or emotional investment. But this is a pretty easy way out of those two things. Setsuko was designed to rip the salty water right out of the audience's tear ducts. She's adorable, innocent, and most importantly, helpless. But, from my perspective at least, this is a very effective ploy to incite feelings for characters that otherwise have no narrative value. And judging by the critical response to Grave of the Fireflies, it's a ploy that's worked quite well.
But the biggest problem with the theory of Grave of the Fireflies being a masterpiece is the aforementioned choice (yes, I italicized that earlier for a reason). The fact that Seita and Setsuko's suffering is brought about due to a single choice Seita, who though young is certainly old enough to understand the gravity of his decisions, made willingly rather than a situation where he and his sister were at the mercy of their circumstances completely debases any sense of tragedy the film might have had. Seita is simply lazy and too proud to work for his upkeep, and rather than being responsible, he decides to essentially commit suicide and take his sister with him. The lack of sympathy I have for Seita is almost enough to undo my mourning for Setsuko.
Another argument for Grave of the Fireflies' masterpiece theory is that it's a powerful "anti-war" film. This, like just about everything else people say about this film, is overblown and misrepresented in the work proper. There really isn't any strong anti-war statement in the film. We see bombings and death caused by war, but Seita and Setsuko's suffering is a direct cause of Seita's decisions and not the war itself. The only elements of the war we see in the film, the bombings, are merely a catalyst to set things into motion. Certainly, war is horrible, but Grave of the Fireflies does nothing to state this more than the fundamentality of war being bad that almost all of us acknowledge on a base level without help from a movie. This is not Schindler's List: The Anime, people. Get over it.
I hate to add wood to this fire, but even the presentational values of Grave of the Fireflies are not very impressive. The animation is mediocre and pales in comparison to almost the entire body of Studio Ghibli's work. Given, this is in part due to the realistic, subtle art style used to allow us to relate to the characters as being human, but even so, the visual presentation of the film completely failed to impress me. The music sounds electronic, and while I appreciate the subtlety, it's almost completely dismissible. The only place where the film really excels is in the voice acting. The cast delivers very sincere performances and the actors are appropriately aged for the characters in the film.
Dying children does not make something a tragedy. It's an easy way to elicit an emotional response. Dropping a few bombs does not make a statement against war. In this case, it's merely an inciting incident to get the characters moving. Combining these two elements does not make something a masterpiece. There are many examples of anime I can think of that offer much more poignant offerings of tragedy and anti-war sentiments (Gundam 0080 immediately comes to mind), so if that's really what you're looking for, I'd suggest you find some of them. You'll only find a paper-thin attempt here that covers itself by tossing out the kiddy card. Sorry, folks. A masterpiece this ain't.