I *loathe* half the running time. But the goldfish-esque internal memory of the film is perfectly reflective of a child in that situation. I rate this on *the* scene that makes this film noteworthy. If you can sit through it and still feel that initiating an expansionist war is a good thing, you're colder than I! Often mistaken for an anti-American film, it's in fact subtly anti-Jingoistic. Treat it like a short film and it's marvellous.

Great look into the effect of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, however it suffers from horrific voice work, in both Japanese and English. The change of artstyle when the bombers are shown (to a more American style) is one of the coolest effects I've seen in animation. Definitely worth watching, but prepare to cringe at the voicework.

Its bomb dropping sequence is absolutely incredible.

The bad animation sometimes makes serious things (people being vaporized by the atomic bomb) look unintentionally funny.

Occasionally has the same vibe as the joyful 'Heidi'-anime I used to watch on German television as a kid. Apart, of course, from the nuclear holocaust making peoples skin sear away from their bodies and their eyes crawl out of their skulls. And corpses in the streets...the thousands and thousands of rotting corpses. People have complained that it's too silly to take seriously, but go on then: You make film about the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that appeals to Japanese kids.

GORE, GORE EVERYWHERE

One of the few animes about "real" things... no giant monsters or robots or anything, it's about a little boy trying to survive postnuke Hiroshima. Juvenile but really something

Stay away from this one. 'Grave of the Fireflies' is much superior.

In the right hands, this could have been a great movie. Powerful subject matter and a good story. But it's undermined by mediocre animation, poor acting, a sentimental script, and an overbearing score.

Not quite as good as Grave of the Fireflies, but just as effective and tear inducing.

For the first half hour this is a pretty cheery mediocre anime, then suddenly shit gets real with some truly gruesome and impacting images, but only for a little while. Unfortunately, it can't really sustain the heavy emotional impact it's going for, falling back constantly on silly melodrama with occasional somber moments. It's above average and historically interesting, but not really anything more than that.

A very intense depiction of the effects of the bomb.

It's obvious from the plot summary that the movie is going to be melodramatic, cheesy, and preachy. But it also has an irritating lead and a sudden resurrection. But I at least appreciated the art style, which contradicted the dark subject matter.