Anime TV Online - Watch Grave of the Fireflies Online here

^{Grave of the Fireflies} is one, if not THE BEST anti-war movie that was ever created. Written and directed by the great Isao Takahata, Grave of the Fireflies movie made it's debut in 1988 under the Studio Ghibli flag and it's based on a partially-autobiographic novel of the same name by Akiyuki Nosaka.

This is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen (animated or otherwise) but also one of the most sad. Despite being animated, I consider Grave of the Firelies a realistic movie. You'll find no teenagers with superpowers, mecha fights, paranormal activities, or any other manbo jambo you often see in anime productions. You'll just see a snapshot of some weeks in the life of a brother and a sister, caught in a horrible tragedy...

Hotaru no Haka (japanese translation) is about the cold reality of a Japan in shambles toward the end of World War II. It depicts the trials of the real victims of all wars... the civilians, the most vulnerable ones being the children! You'll follow the story of young Seita and his even younger sister Setsuko after a major event completely changes their lives... the firebombing of Kobe, their hometown, by the Americans (historic event!).

You know from the start that Grave of the Fireflies will not end well. But yet, until the very finish you refuse to believe it. It's impossible not to feel sympathy by Seita and Setsuko, caught in something bigger and not fully graspable by them. Yet, they try to survive and even manage to have happy, even magical moments, giving strength to one another. Even despite of all the horror that surrounds them, of all the adversity, you can see them smile!

But reality always sets in. And in this film you'll remember something that no one likes to. Life can sometimes be cruel to the most undeserving. Sometimes people are just not prepared for the events that destiny unfolds. And that, in time of crisis, most of the people are NOT kind to you. Most of them just don't care or worse, they scorn or try to take advantage of you. And it's heart-breaking when you see it happen to a teenager and a toddler...

And the end will be the one you expected, but that you really would not believe possible. You'll cry a lot while watching this movie (I even sobbed), so I definitely do not recommend seeing Grave of the Fireflies if you are depressed. You'll just get worse.

But otherwise, I think EVERYONE SHOULD SEE GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES ONCE. It's a lesson to us all about the horror of war.

Besides the beautiful and timeless story, Takahata isn't afraid to do long animated sequences of 10 seconds or more, in simple scenes as showing Setsuko taking clumsily her clothes to go join her brother in water or her incredibly real-life reaction to hearing bad news - the slight tremble and nervous rocking of the feet, before finally beginning a silent cry...

I have only one word to the this level of attention to detail - FANTASTIC! It adds great depth to the characters and makes the viewer forget that they are cartoons, because despite their looks, their reaction are real! This is how real people behave!

The original soundtrack is by Yoshio Mamiya and it's quite sentimental and fitting to this wonderful movie.

So, all in all, this is a MUST SEE movie, even if you are not a fan of anime. Because Grave of the Fireflies transcends itself and achieved, due to it's excellency, the epic war movie status.

Check out this great review of the famous movie critic Roger Ebert. This expert rarely sees anime and even more so gives a film a top-score. But he did it in Grave of The Fireflies.

In this short video he explains some of the reasons why :)

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