Grave of the Fireflies

In my honest opinion, the best movie ever made is the anime 'Grave of the Fireflies'.

To give you an example, when I forced my mum to watch it, the first thing she said was 'Oh brother, not a cartoon'. 15 minuites later she was sobbing: 'stupid movie!'.

The movie follows the lives of two kids during world war two in Japan, toddler Setsuko and Teenager Seita. Their dad is in the Navy and their mom is killed in a fire-bombing. The two kids are sent to live with their Aunt, who has become a greedy old woman from the desperate conditions of the war, like so many others did. Seita and Setsuko get tiered of listening to her nag them, so they decide to go live by themselves, where the real danger switches from US attacks to sickness and starvation. Seitas little sister Setsuko, who have a very very good relationship, quickly becomes very ill.

While my mom said the fact that it was animated distracted her a bit from the dramaticness, I thought it suited it very well. The artstyle was very realistic and was coloured in pale sort of melencholy colours to increase the dreariness the movie talks about. The animation is very good with realistic movements.

To give you another example, I NEVER cry at movies. Like ever ever ever. But I had tears in my eyes twice. Even after you watched it once, just the music in the movie makes you want to cry like some kind of maniac. Another example of how much I like it, if someone offered me either the whole collection of Inu-Yasha tankoubon or a very high-quality subtitled tape of this movie, I would chose the tape. And you all know just how obssesed I am with Inu-Yasha!

So, if you see one movie ever in your life, fuck Star Wars, I assure you this is the best movie ever, way way better than the best Star Wars movie will ever be (As for star wars... that's a whole other rant...).