--- title: "Grave of the Fireflies: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/grave-of-the-fireflies/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/grave-of-the-fireflies" critics_score: 84 critics_reviews: 8 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Grave of the Fireflies (1988): what the critics said Critics' score 84 from 8 reviews: 8 positive, 0 mixed, 0 negative. The reviews are consistently positive, with praise centred on the film’s intimate account of two children struggling through wartime hardship. Critics repeatedly single out the believable siblings, the care of the hand-drawn animation and the contrast between everyday childhood pleasures and surrounding suffering. The consensus treats animation as essential to the drama’s emotional realism, allowing moments of natural beauty to sit beside horror without softening it. Differences are chiefly matters of emphasis rather than substantial dissent: the film’s bleakness is widely acknowledged, but rarely treated as a failing. Radio Times stresses how pride and selfishness overtake decent people, while finding some relief in the melancholy beauty of the fireflies sequence. The Evening Standard is more measured in its praise, emphasising the agonising contrast between cute animation and realistic suffering, though it too admires the depiction of people failing under extreme hardship. ## Time Out — Tom Huddleston Rating 5/5. 21 May 2013. The review opens with a janitor discarding a boy's ashes that spark into the spirits of Seita and Setsuko amid the firebombing of Kobe. It presents the film as a devastating account of the siblings' anguish during the final months of the Second World War. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/grave-of-the-fireflies) ## Empire — Dan Jolin Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 2010. The film is a sobering adult tale of impoverished children struggling to survive in wartime Japan, not a cute family story. It is a devastating but beautifully constructed animated drama. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/grave-fireflies-review/) ## Radio Times — David Parkinson Rating 4/5. The film is hailed as one of Japanimation's undisputed masterpieces and a study of pride and selfishness overtaking decent people in crisis. The hopelessness of the children's plight makes for harrowing viewing, offset by the indelible melancholic beauty of the nocturnal fireflies sequence. [Read the review](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-m5vpiw/grave-of-the-fireflies/) ## Total Film — Jamie Russell Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 14 May 2013. This is a powerful anti-war drama and the dark adult flipside to Totoro, made all the more harrowing by the care invested in its beautifully drawn child characters. It chills like few other animated films. [Read the review](https://www.gamesradar.com/grave-of-the-fireflies-1-review/) ## Evening Standard — Charlotte O'Sullivan Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 7 July 2015. The film is agonizing to watch because of its bleak, realistic story of wartime suffering told through cute animation. The director excels at showing how the human spirit can fail under extreme hardship. [Read the review](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/grave-of-the-fireflies-film-review-8630691.html) ## RogerEbert.com — Roger Ebert 19 March 2000. The critic calls the film a powerful dramatic work that forces a rethinking of animation, praising its neorealist storytelling of two children surviving wartime hardship and its poetic visuals that heighten emotional realism over literal representation. [Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-grave-of-the-fireflies-1988) ## Slant Magazine — Chris Cabin 30 December 2018. The critic praises the film's sincere humanism and blunt attitude toward the ugliness of war, especially those fought from a distance. It singles out Takahata's depiction of the siblings' physical and mental disintegration alongside their daily routines and sense of purpose amid resource scarcity. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/grave-of-the-fireflies/) ## The AV Club — Tasha Robinson 11 October 2002. The critic highlights the film's mix of personal and impersonal elements in focusing on two children's suffering and its broader implications about wartime selfishness. It singles out the believable characterizations and humanizing details that make the doomed siblings' story affecting yet difficult to watch. [Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/grave-of-the-fireflies-collectors-series-1798197952) ## The Guardian — Steve Rose 23 May 2013. The critic calls this a Japanese masterpiece and a war story as wrenching as any live-action film, praising its unsentimental intimacy in depicting the siblings' traumas alongside moments of natural beauty and childish delight. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/may/23/grave-of-the-fireflies-review) ## The New York Times — Glenn Kenny Rating Critic's Pick. 3 January 2019. The review highlights the film's still-stunning use of animation to convey harrowing realism in a World War II story of orphaned siblings fending for themselves, noting Takahata's boundary-pushing personal expression through the medium. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/movies/grave-of-the-fireflies-review.html) ## Den of Geek — Ryan Lambie Fi1m's normalised score 95/100 (inferred from the text). 24 April 2018. The critic calls it one of the most powerful animated films ever made, a harrowing story of two children surviving in the aftermath of wartime devastation in Japan. They single out the film's use of animation to convey quiet, realistic horror and the cruelty war brings out in people. [Read the review](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/grave-of-the-fireflies-an-animated-anti-war-masterpiece/) ## Eye for Film — Scott Macdonald Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 13 December 2005. The critic calls it one of the most shattering anti-war movies ever made, a masterpiece that is deeply sad and unrelenting. They praise the beautiful hand-drawn animation and its ability to evoke pure empathy and grief. [Read the review](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/grave-of-the-fireflies-film-review-by-scott-macdonald) ## HeyUGuys — Patrick Gamble Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 29 July 2011. It's a devastating, heart-breaking portrayal of war through children's eyes, powerful as any anti-war film, showing animation's potential for serious storytelling. Praises the emotional force and the relationship between the siblings. [Read the review](https://www.heyuguys.com/studio-ghibli-video-vault-grave-of-the-fireflies/) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/grave-of-the-fireflies.md