Makes your average Disney movie's emotions paltry. Grave of the Fireflies is, by the widest margin possible, the most devastating yet humanising animated movie ever made. It took inspiration from true stories in World War Two era Japan, and even though it's technically made up the film (it's based on an autobiography, though it's not 1:1) feels TOO real and devastating during its hour-and-a-half runtime.
Basically there's a family struggling to cope with the fallout of Japan's surrender during the War, and everything falls to pieces when the mother of Seita and Setsuko succumbs to severe burning from an air raid. So yeah: right off the bat the film is already a more severe setting than modern Disney-fare because it's about a teenage boy protecting his little sister from the horrors of warfare and everyday struggles of life.
This is an anime film that completely overwrites the MANY cliches and tropes of the medium (no high-school magical girls, no mechas, no tournaments determining the fate of the world, no post-apocalyptic dystopia), and through its celluloid paintings and sharp colour palette, Grave of the Fireflies is the most humanising and devastating film ever made. It's not for the faint-hearted and it's the kind of pain that reminds you that life still has boatloads of stuff worth living for, in spite of the horrors we endure.
Grave of the Fireflies is powerhouse cinema that's hard to watch yet is THE most necessary war film anyone can watch. It's phenomenal stuff and hearth-achingly sad, but it's a cinematic watershed moment that showed animation is JUST as humanising and alive as live-action cinema.
Anime or not, live-action or otherwise, Grave of the Fireflies is a film to remember. 5/5 stars.
P. S. Keep tissues handy, and hopefully you don't need counselling afterwards. You've been warned.