10 Animated Movies That Should Have Won The Oscar For Best Animation (But Didn't Because The Award Didn't Exist Yet)

Studio Ghibli is more than just a vehicle for the work of Hayao Miyazaki: it is a vast machine that has produced works of the same quality for which Pixar is now known.

Grave of the Fireflies was released in 1988, and it's fair to say it wasn't anything less than unflinchingly harrowing. It could have been a live-action feature and been made pretty much shot for shot, but this might detract from the fact that this art-form gave the film an edge that you can't shake. It later was adapted into a live-action film as a TV movie.

It's the story of two siblings growing up in Japan at the end of World War 2, and their struggle against homelessness, starvation, and the threat of American bombs. There is no mystical whimsy, nor magical saviour come the film's end, and because of this, Grave of the Fireflies is a movie that is so hard to watch a second time. It serves as a stark reminder of the effect of war upon those caught in the middle of its devastating might.

It secured no Oscar nominations and really didn't have a run at any major award ceremonies. However, now looking upon what was to come in the years following it, many now say it should have been the first animated film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The status and acclaim it has enjoyed in the years since are up there with any war film ever made in any medium. Many live-action films have tried and failed to capture what this manages to do, without the use of tangible realism.