Quite good

Rating: 9/10 (9 April 2001)

This is a very good movie. I recommend you that before watching it, erase from your mind all you've heard about "anime" (Mecha, robots, flying people fighting with super powers, etc.) Just sit there, forget everything and enjoy the movie.
And, besides, this is a VERY realistic movie, very well drawn. You won't find anything in it that excuses the animation except little Setsuko behavior.
It's more that a sad story, a real story, because...
________ WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD _______________ ...because Isao Takahata (or Akiyuki Nosaka) shows us not two heroes nor two people which behavior should be followed as if they were. In fact, I think Seita could have done more: he could have worked in something (when you live in a Third-World country you see poverty situations like this every day, and how people struggles with them, not letting themselves die...). Seita and Setsuko are two very, very, very well represented cases of normal people... Actually, everyone (Seita's aunt, for example) and everything drawn in this movie is very very like real life.
________ END OF SPOILER _______________

Rent it or buy it. It's one of the best animated movies I've seen. Disney hasn't (and maybe won't) do something like this movie. 9/10.