Plot: This is the story of two children, Seita and his baby sister, Setsuko.
The story takes place in early 1945, during the US's bombings of Japan during WWII.
It's during a firebombing of Kobe in which Seita and Setsuko are orphaned when their immediate family are killed by our bombs.
The rest of the story follows Setsuko and Seita as they move in with their extended family, run away from a less than pleasant situation with them, and Setsuko struggling to protect the childhood innocence of Seita
And I'm not going to give away any spoilers by saying this, because this is the first scene you see. Setsuko dies and joins his sister afterlife.
Review: Now I'm going to be honest right here.
The farthest I've ever been able to make it through "Grave of the Fireflies" is about half way through.
And even when trying to watch it for this review, I couldn't get that far in. I started crying after about 5 or 10 minutes.
I only got as far as them running for the shelter.
This is a sad movie.
First, a bit of the backstory I was able to learn from the Wikipedia entry (shortner.com/kf).
The anime film "Grave of the Fireflies" is based on the novel "Grave of the Fireflies" by Nosaka.
It's semi-autobiographical, as he lost his sister to malnutrition in 1945 during WWII, and wrote it as an apology to her.
That, in and of itself, is a depressing story.
But then you have the anime itself.
The reason that it's so depressing is because you get the impression that both Setsuko and Seita are dead from the earliest scenes of the film, and then the story follows their lives.
We see an older brother caring for his little sister during a difficult situation. The loss of their mother to the bombs, and their father to the war.
I don't think this would be so sad if not for the fact that Studio Ghibli took great care in writing the script, and animating the film (which is one of the reasons behind Ghibli's popularity).
I began to care for the characters throughout the story.
They actually made an impact on me.
And it was a hard movie to watch.
If you don't begin to cry at some point in the movie, then you must not even have a heart.
Unfortunately, I don't feel that you can watch this movie more than once if you have a heart.
I'm going to give "Grave of the Fireflies" 5 pieces of candy out of 5.
You can find out more about the bombings of Kobe @ shortner.com/kg