Anime News Network - Review

Anime News Network - Review: "If you've never seen Grave of the Fireflies, you're missing a true classic. A 1988 double feature with My Neighbor Totoro, this is Studio Ghibli at its finest: a tragic, touching story of two youngsters trying to survive during War-stricken Japan.

Years ago, when I was just getting onto the anime scene, it was a running joke that Central Park Media would eventually dub Grave of the Fireflies. Ignoring their brief agreement with Manga Entertainment to share dubbed projects, CPM's English Language versions were and still are consistently sub-par. It truly boggled the mind what their talentless dubbing staff would do to this fine film.

Now that they finally have released a dubbed version (produced for bilingual DVD purposes), I have to admit that it could have been a lot worse.

While other films have told the World War II story through the eyes of children (AD Vision's 'Rail of the Star', Streamline's 'Barefoot Gen', and 'Who's Left Behind?', to name a few), none have so successfully captured the horror and despair as Grave of the Fireflies. Some Japanese people have told me that older relatives cannot even sit through the film, since it is just too emotional and comes too close to real life. This is an anime that you can show to anyone, should you need to prove that not all anime is gory violent oversexed Akira spin-offs."

Mark
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