Most powerful animated film I've seen

Rating: 10/10 (20 December 2015)

Movies don't often have the ability to make me weep, and never has an animated film done so, until I saw this film. I found myself in tears for several sequences of this movie. It has the incredible ability to come off the screen and make me feel all kinds of emotions I didn't know an animated movie could make me feel. I laughed, I cried, I was shocked, I was surprised, this movie did it all.
The film starts off with a young boy dying of starvation in a public train station. A janitor finds the body and, upon going through his belongings, finds a candy container. The janitor throws the container away in a nearby field, which opens the container, releasing the souls of the young boy and his sister. We find out, through flash back the boy is a 14 young man named Seita and his sister is a four year-old named Setsuko. The two live with their mother in Kobe, Japan, while the father fights in the navy. The two are forced to live with their aunt after a bombing raid critically injures their mother. They find out that their aunt is a very mean spirited lady who steals from the kid's mother and belittles them constantly. The rest of the story revolves around Seita and Setsuko and we figure out how these two ended up dying.
I think that some people may have a problem with the fact that the movie shows you that these two are dead within the first couple minutes. However I would argue this is actually an incredible strength to this film. Not often is a story told this way, in fact none that I've ever heard, and it's really interesting and ambitious. Sure there's no mystery as to what happens to the kids. But the movie is done so well, that there exists suspense because it doesn't tell you how the girl passes away, or the status of the mother or father. This also works to the movie's advantage because it just makes you want to jump into the movie and tell the two main characters that they're in danger, because you want these two to make it. And the fact that they don't just makes it all the more heart breaking to watch.
The voice acting for this film is absolutely spectacular, some of the best I've ever heard. A lot of this comes from the voice actress playing Setsuko, who does a phenomenal job, especially for a child actress. The actor playing Seita is great too, conveying that sense of a false sense of hope that is present throughout most of this film. These two work off of each other so well and are so well written that it's hard not to support them and their efforts for survival.
Another thing I really enjoyed about this movie is it's Kafkaesque feel. This meaning, a sense of feeling like you're in a bad dream. Sometimes I feel as though Seito is in such a state of sorrow and panic that he's in sort of a dream like state of shock as to how bad his situation really is. The world is also in this sense as well. Everything, and I mean everything, that can go wrong, does and it's all so surreal but at the same time, totally believable and plausible. This poor kid is almost driven to the brink of insanity and ultimately death and it's hard to watch but at the same time, hard not to watch.
Then, of course, there's the animation. How can I not talk about it? The whole film looks fantastic, some of the scenes when nothing is really happening and no dialogue is spoken, the animation really sinks in and I can get really wrapped up in it. The song by the shelter looks beautiful, even though it's just some boring river. The scenes where it shows the city after being completely destroyed by a U.S. air raid is spectacular is how sad and powerful it is. I feel like a lot of the imagery will have the "American guilt trip" effect without even being live action, which is really impressive.
In conclusion, this film has clearly given me a lot of things to think about and reflect on, which for me is the trade mark of a great film. It will make you feel things you didn't know that an animated movie can make you feel. If you're looking for a powerful, animated film, than this is right up your alley.