Every Studio Ghibli Movie Ranked From Worst To Best

Ghibli isn't all just about the Miyazaki name: fellow founder Isao Takahata is as formidable a talent in his own right, as he proved with Grave Of The Fireflies, the first film he directed for the studio. It's an emotionally heavy war film, taking in the usual anti-war stance of the studio and playing with the audience's fragile human hearts through the story of a pair of children coping with the death of their mother during WWII.

In terms of being an exercise in devastation, Grace Of The Fireflies is mostly unrivalled, with an almost perfect record of making audiences cry (unless you've got a heart made of actual stone), but peel away the emotion and the film isn't quite as great as it is often remembered. As with the opening of Pixar's Up, the emotional heft covers up some sins. Like how manipulative it is.

As a result of that, the characters don't feel entirely authentic, they're more like fable characters designed only to transmit a bigger message, and while the anti-war message is clearly worthy, it's not quite as well fleshed out as it imagines itself to be.