Saddest Animated Feature Ever:

[rbnyc]

Grave of the Fireflies.

What do you think?

[CBGLuthier]

1. Well, of course

Hell, it is almost the saddest movie period.

Should be seen by everyone at least once.

[rbnyc]

4. I've been thinking about it for days.

I cried so hard.

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. Yep. Cried during it.

I watched in February the first time I saw it, and then, when summer came around and I was outside and saw the first fireflies, I was overcome with sadness. It was really quite amazing, the emotional impact just of seeing fireflies.

And of course, my partner is Japanese, and her dad was one of those kids in Japan during the war who starved and did poorly and begged for chocolate from the American GIs, so the story has a real personal attachment as well. That, and my adamant stance against war, if for no other reason than that children and innocent are the true victims, and that the people who actually start the wars never get hurt, cuz they don't actually fight. The cowardly fucks.

Grave of the Fireflies - I knew that was gonna be your answer before I clicked! Briliant, brilliant movie.

[rbnyc]

3. Wow

I'm so glad your partner survived.

It is a great anti-war film.

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. It was actually her father, not her

I'm not that old! :-)

And you are right about it being a great anti-war film - and even though it uses children to tell the story, it's not bullshit like Hallmark or the Lifetime Channel or Spielberg would have done it, with lots of emotional manipulation and lying and bullshit.

It truly is, quite, simply, a very plausibly true story of two kids who slowly starve to death in Japan at the end of the war, like hundreds of thousands of kids did, who were left to die.

My partner filled me on one truth that makes the story even more true and horrific - at the end of the war, when Japan was starving and suffering, orphans WERE left to die. Japan is very family-centric, and as far as the government was concerned, kids were solely the responsibility of adults; and if children had no more adults in their life, then they weren't worth consideration, and were allowed to die, and there was no dishonor involved in allowing it - one had no moral or ethical duty to help any non-family members.

Which also makes the help that some of the non-family adults gave the children all that more impressive, since in America it would be seen as a wonderful thing, to help kids who aren't your own, but in Japan, it would be truly miraculous and beyond-Jesus-like to help kids not your own.

[rbnyc]

7. ooops.

doing too many things at once. now read your post more carefully, which I obviously didn't even realize was from you.

[RumpusCat]

5. That movie was TOO sad

I was with the tear-jerking up to a point but man, talk about piling it on. I was past sad and almost to giggling by the end. Does that make me a bad person? :hide:

Sometimes I have this reaction to super sad movies.

I think the creepiest animated film ever is <i>The Secret of Nimh</i> but I'm not sure about saddest.