This is one of those films I can only watch once, as great as it is. It's just so heavy. I think the animated medium was ideal for the story because it adds to the sense of the story being told from a child's perspective, it deepens the tone of the film's already sad atmosphere.

It does a really good job of showing the devastation of firebombing, which isn't something talked about as much as something like the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The atomic attacks are often regarded as creating heretofore unseen levels of human devestation, but the firebombing by the allies in Tokyo resulted in close to the same level of civilian casualities as the bomb, or at least in the same ballpark.

If you would like to see something similar but different, I recommend Barefoot Gen.

Every time someone says its the saddest movie, I put it off. Barefoot Gen was enough for me and I can already tell this is gonna be more in your face.

One of the anime that I will never rewatch, no matter how good it is...