The story is about Haruka, a 16- year old girl who lost her mother at a very young age and forgot all about the mirror that she had as a gift from her mother. Feeling guilty for not taking care of it, she decides to visit the shrine to pray for the return of her mirror to Lord Anari and which according to a real life Japanese legend, if a precious item was lost to you, an offering to Anari may bring your precious item back to you. Later on, she follows a strange little fox into the woods and when she founds a small pound between the rocks, she gets sucked in into Oblivion Island, a world where everything is built around objects and items that were neglected by their rightful owners. Now, Haruka and her new friend Tao decide to find the mirror before The Baron, the ruler of the island, gets his hand on the mirror first and use it to destroy the island in order to make a new world.
While the story in Oblivion Island is not incredibly complex, it does have an incredibly deep theme that is rarely seen in movies these days: The theme of neglect. Oblivion Island's message is about never neglecting our precious childhood objects, since this film takes place in a world where items like broken dolls, mirrors, stuffed dolls and other kinds of objects are abandoned by their owners for no reason and that is sadly true to be honest, since nowadays parents buy toys for their kids cause it's "hip" and "cool" like the commercials advertised, instead of being gifts that you're suppose to take good care and treasure them like when you were a kid back then. The story combines real-life Japanese folklore with a mix of Alice In Wonderland storytelling to the film and it does feel like I'm watching an anime film of Alice In Wonderland, but about a world of abandoned objects instead. The main characters are pretty good. The chemistry with Tao and Haruka is heart-warming and their friendship develop well enough throughout the movie that you will care deeply for them, even that little plush doll Cotton is a very simple yet deep symbolic character in the film (which you have to see for yourself in order to understand it since I don't wanna spoil the film for you). The other characters are mediocre at best, plus the villain is weak and uninteresting, as he just wants to take over the island in order to make a new one.
The animation by Production I.G is breathtaking. The amount of creativity and effort put into the animation will make Studio Ghibli jealous and the designs of the characters are magnificent. The island is also a stunner, the way the place is made is just unbelievable and did I mention that this film was in 3D when it was released in Japan? Cause if I watched this in 3D, my eyes would have been blown away with so much color and detail. The music is good, but not as jaw-drooping as you would have thought it would but to give credit, it does offer some gorgeous piano tracks that brings a lot of emotion to the story. The English dub for Oblivion Island is not that bad, Christine Marie Cabanos and Cassandra Lee were perfectly cast with their roles as Haruka and Tao, while Patrick Seitz delivers an awesome over the top performance as The Baron that gives the character enough charm than the Japanese version and Julie Maddalena gives a heart-warming performance as the doll Cotton. As for the other voices.... Well, they were ok, but their voices did not even fit for the characters at all and they come off goofy and bland.
While it's not a masterpiece like other anime films, Oblivion Island has enough charm, originality and effort that some of the flaws can be overlooked, thanks to the charm of the story and the message it's trying to tell to it's audience. If you want a movie that's rich with imagination and creativity, I highly recommend this film to every animation fans of all ages. See this film cause we won't get a creative film like this in the US for a long time. As for the Oscars and The Academy Awards, they better nominate this movie or bad things will happen to them...
