No words can describe how I felt after watching Grave of the Fireflies. I'm not really sure how I should be feeling either. I'm depressed over what happened in the movie, and yet I'm glad that I was able to experience something of this movie's magnitude. Grave of the Fireflies is truly a movie like no other.

Based on the (auto)biographical novel "Hotaru no Haka" by Akiyuki Nosaka, Grave of the Fireflies offers a very interesting perspective on World War II. The majority of the movies that I've seen about this particular war have mostly been centered around the Americans, portraying the other side as evil. Grave of the Fireflies flips that around, except the movie really isn't about the war, it's about Seita and Setsuko's life and how they cope with the war. The war is merely secondary to the real situation in the movie.

The events in the movie are well complimented by the moving musical score, which was composed by the ever talented Ghibli musician Hisaishi Joe. The perfect musical tracks are played at precisely the right moments. Uplifting pieces in the rare yet extremely uplifting parts, sad music for the frequent sad parts, and silence when it calls for it. What many anime titles with great soundtracks sometimes miss is that effective usage of silence is often more important than using music.

Despite the fact that it was created in 1988, Grave of the Fireflies doesn't look like it's aged at all. Environments, such as smoking craters (see? I can put humor into even THIS review), are drawn with such amazing detail that it's hard to differentiate it from even some of the newer anime series coming out. Animations are also very fluid here, and you can really see it in just the character movements how well done it is.

Unfortunately, Grave of the Fireflies is really a movie that needs to be watched more than once to be fully appreciated. The first time you watch it, you'll just be too shocked by what's going on that you may miss many of the little details and symbols in the movie. For instance, in my first watch I didn't really take too much notice of the aunt's actions. I didn't really understand what was truly going on until my second watch, and I can assure you that Grave of the Fireflies gets better and better with each watch. It's a masterpiece that can't be missed by anyone.