A survival tale

Rating: 9/10 (2 July 2003)

Grave of the Fireflies, set in Japan during the hellish summer of 1945, tells the story of a boy who takes on the duty of looking out not only for himself but also his toddler sister under some of the most dangerous conditions possible -- a catastrophic war with a horrible famine -- after his mother is killed in an American air raid. There's much work to do, but practically no food.
The son does surprisingly well in letting his little sister be a little girl, introducing her to the beauties of nature and the Japanese culture even under the extreme conditions. Two things are lacking -- food and safety. Not all the fireflies are the innocuous insects; some are the small pellets of incendiary thermite that the US Army Air Corps drops upon the wooden buildings that are the norm in Japan.
To go further I would have to spoil the movie ending.
The animation is excellent, the symbolism is effective, and so far as I can tell, it could only have been an animation. The situation is simply to dangerous for live actors of any age, let alone children, and the destruction necessary to establish the true horror of war and hunger would be violate every ethic. A must-see, a classic anti-war film that puts the lie to the idea that the common Japanese people of World War II were unfeeling automatons who deserved what they got.