What happened of late was that Pixar went ahead and released another motion-film in the animated field of things, being the superhero comedy The Incredibles. It turned out to be marvelous, is what transpired, but The Duke still found it somewhat absurd to hear folks on the tellyvisuals waxing about how it was the greatest animated feature of all ever. That right there is a bold statement, is what, possibly rendered in sorta lifelike 3D with some Tom Hanks, but it's a statement that fails to take into account the following information;

I.e., The Incredibles, whilst wonderful, isn't the best animated feature of all ever. That title right there was picked the hell up back in the hoary old climes of 1988 by no less a motherfucker than Isao Takahata.

Takahata's Hotaru no haka, or Grave Of The Fireflies, translation fans, is nothing less than The Best Animated Feature Ever Fucking Made Even Ever, and The Duke don't make claims like that lightly, is the truth of the matter. The simple fact is that no damn thing, not Toy Story nor the delightful sequel, nor Snow White And The Seven Dwarves, nor Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin, Akira nor Ninja Scroll can touch Grave Of The Fireflies when it comes to celluloid perfection.

What Grave Of The Fireflies manages to do is to have a fella in tears for a good forty fuckin minutes on account of a buncha drawings. For sure, there are bits here and there in Bambi or maybe Urotsukidoji - Legend Of The Overfiend, when a fella cuts his sex-limb off on account of it's possessed or some shit, that play on a man's sentimental side. What these are, though, are isolated incidents. Grave Of The Fireflies actually has stone-cold motherfuckers like The Duke aching of the soul, is what, on account of the heartbreaking nature of it all.

Adapted from Akiyuki Nosaka's novel, Grave Of The Fireflies concerns a young lad and his even-younger sister during WW2 Japan. The first thing we see is the lad, Seita, starving to death in a bustling train station. Folks come up and poke him with brushes and stuff, see if he's maybe just sleeping, but no, another one dead is all it is. Pick him the hell up and clean this shit, would you ever? From here, Seita's ghost, and the ghost of the sister, Setsuko, wander around the events that led to their death, illuminated by an otherworldly red glow. We see the firebombing of their home, and their subsequent travels to the house of a relative who at first appears welcoming, but who ultimately turns on the pair once the clothes of their dead mother have been sold for rice.