On Sat, 31 Jan 1998, Don Euclid wrote:

> >striving, and it ended in the quiet of the grave. Barefoot Gen had the
> >main character survive all he encountered, with people who cared for him
> >and who he cared for. IIRC, the last scene was a bright sunny day, when
> >he discovered his hair was growing back again, and he marveled at the
> >resiliency of humanity. Completely different feel.
> 
> I must agree to this.  Mainly because the last ten minutes of Grave of the
> Fireflies (the mini-music video featuring the kid sister) is a real killer.
> I've seen a few friends of mine who laugh at stuff like "Faces of Death" get
> choked up at that point.  The film just doesn't state that "they are dead",
> they rub your nose in it!

And in Barefoot Gen, there are THOUSANDS of people dying EXTREMELY
gruesome deaths, and your nosed is rubbed in it so deep that you want to
cut it off! If you want to get an idea, take a look at this webpage:
http://www.filmzone.com/Animation/barefoot.html

Yes, in the end Gen and his mother survive. After witnessing the Gen's
father, little brother and sister being burned alive and the newborn baby
die from hunger. And that's mentioning only their family.

To me, Grave of the Frieflies was nothing in comparison, probably due to
the fact that the end, the children's death is clear right from the
beinning.

Michael "Brazil" Borgwardt --- Member of #WASHU# and Her would-be guinea-pig.
        Untiring defender of Washu-chan, Asuka-chan and Elektra-chan. 
   A Homepage for Elektra: http://www.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/~borgward/
--------------- Let`s shake the dew off this lily, shall we ? ---------------