Though the ending is tragic, it’s the sparse moments of joy that stick with you.
Astonishingly enough, Studio Ghibli’s two greatest achievements were released as a double bill, which must have confounded audiences at the time, given the vastly different moods of “My Neighbor Totoro” (a featherweight fantasy) and this more realistic World War II-set drama from Miyazaki’s mentor and colleague Isao Takahata. Animation is so often dismissed as a medium for children, and yet, “Grave of the Fireflies” (adapted from Akiyuki Nosaka’s 1967 novel) represents the artform’s unique potential to tackle subjects too grim for most audiences to handle via live-action — a lesson later applied to films such as “Waltz With Bashir” and “Funan.” Here, Takahata presents audiences with the Japanese side of a devastating war, observing the wrenching toll this conflict takes on two children, 14-year-old Seita and his 4-year-old sister Setsuke, who are orphaned during the U.S. fire-bombing of Kobe. (These harrowing scenes were informed by air raids that Takahata himself survived. Fifteen years later, Miyazaki would draw from his own childhood memories for “The Wind Rises.”) Homeless and starving through impossible circumstances, Seita struggles to protect and distract his sister from the horrors that surround them. Though the ending is tragic, it’s the sparse moments of joy that stick with you.