Grave of the Fireflies...

Sometime ago, I picked up the VHS version of Grave of the Fireflies...

It is post-war Japan, just weeks before American troops arrive for occupation. In the city of Kobe, a boy lies dying in a train station. By his body lies a small metal candy container. A janitor, not sure what to make of its ashy contents, pitches it into the night. As fireflies float softly around it, the ghostly figures of the boy and his little sister emerge... Flashback to a short time earlier. Orphaned and homeless from a fire-bomb attack on their city, 14-year-old Seita and his 4-year-old sister Setsuko set out to survive on their own in the face of a society no longer able to help them. Forced into living in an abandoned bomb shelter in the Japanese countryside, they slowly come to realize that they cannot escape the hardships of war or even find enough food on which to survive... Based on an original story by Akiyuki Nosaka, Grave of the Fireflies takes over your emotions in a way that few films (live-action or animated) ever manage to do. Tragic, beautiful and frightfully true-to-life. It is a testimony of the human spirit that shines ever brighter in the face of adversity.

This powerful and tragic story about the effect of W.W.II on Japanese children is simply an anime masterpiece which no fan of great cinema should miss. Winner of the Best Animated Feature Film at the 1994 Chicago International Children's Film Festival.

I like dreary, depressing anime just as much as the next guy, but, Grave of the Fireflies was too depressing for my tastes. I gave Grave of the Fireflies a 0 out of 5. I used to have Grave of the Fireflies on subtitled VHS, but, in the aftermath of the Ultimate Otaku Fall Cleanup, I decided not to keep it in my archive.