Incredibly moving and visually stunning

Rating: 10/10 (12 January 2020)

This is one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking films I've ever seen. Certainly in terms of war movies, the emotional impact of this I can only compare to Schindler's List.
Visually it is as exquisite as one expects from Studio Ghibli, and there is that wistful, childlike sense of wonder in the visuals and the music as in Spirited Away, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, etc. But don't go into this with the usual mindset of a family animated film - it is a serious drama that happens to be animated.
That said, this should be essential viewing as part of an education about the destructiveness of war. Especially for Western viewers to empathise with the victims of the 'other side' of WWII. War is an abomination that causes innocent people to lose everything, and few works of art carry that message more movingly than Grave of the Fireflies.