This film is criticizing the Japanese, not the Americans.

A lot of people view this film as a bait for the bombing of Japan by the Americans, when that could not be further from the truth. Yes, what the Americans did was shtty, but war in general is shtty and this film shows that.

If you have read the original short story that it is based off of, the real tragedy is not only the bombing of Japan, but how people treated each other during that time.

We see it constantly throughout the film. For example, how Seita's mother goes from being a dignified human being to becoming a maggot-ridden corpse thrown into a mass grave and burnt without any respect or ceremony. Seita does shut himself from the world, and people who have seen this movie criticize him for that. But with the way he is treated, is it any wonder?

There are many examples throughout the film where we see the callousness of Japanese society. Even in the beginning of the film, where the train station guard rummages through Seita's dead body and throws out the candy tin as trash. No regard for the dead and the dying, treating him as "another one."

In war, society breaks down. There is chaos, and it tends to become every man for himself. In wartime Japan, we see there is some semblance of society. When Seita's aunt takes him and Setsuko in, we see that there is compassion. However, that quickly turns to greediness. She complains and complains and takes and takes from Seita. The aunt also did not seem to show an ounce of grief when she found out that Seita's mom died. Yes, it is a war and everyone is running on fumes. People lose their patience and tolerance as things get worse. The aunt seemed to have no regrets letting Seita and his sister go. He said he has no idea where he will go, and the aunt does not seem to care about abandoning two children.

Setsuko and Seita live in their own little world, because everyone else rejected them. He never hears from his father, who is probably long gone. Here are two orphans, with no one to care for them. Only the policeman seems to pity them. Even as his sister is slowly dying from malnutrition, the doctor coldly tells him that she needs "better nutrition." Where is he going to get proper food in the middle of a war?

The icing on the cake was when Seita is at the bank and he is shocked to find out the war ended. There is no mention of the atomic bomb. Seita finds out his father may have died, when another person sardonically tells him that there isn't a single ship left in the Japanese fleet.

That is how the Japanese treat the war. As an embarrassing time that should be forgotten. Why? Because they "lost" the war. Japanese people who speak out against what happened during the war (on both sides) are controversial people in Japan.

What this movie is telling us is that the reason why the Japanese should feel ashamed about WWII, is not because they lost, but because they were so cold and unhelpful to each other. Seita, a child, dying alone of starvation in a train station is a shameful example of that. And his poor sister dying with no one to know about her or pity her but him. And there many such children like him, who are victims of the war that society was cruel to, and forgot them.

Even the man who sold him the funeral casket made jokes about there being enough rations to burn the dead (instead of feeding the living) and in the same sentence, saying how nice of a day it is, though he should hurry up with the cremation because it is a hot day.

Another example to sum up this movie's harsh message, is the group of girls coming back to the mansion after the war ended, giggling with glee, and playing a record, something they haven't been able to do in a long time. Like they were away on leave. Meanwhile, across the pond that they lived from, Seita and Setsuko lived in their own little world, struggling, but enjoying what little Joy they had left.