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What did you think of this episode?
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Dec 30, 2020 3:59 AM
#1
THIS IS AN ANIME ONLY DISCUSSION POST. DO NOT DISCUSS THE MANGA BEYOND THIS EPISODE. ---------------------------------------- She was sent to the Orphanage by her mother when she was a baby (chasing by other witches); Her name was originally "Ayatsuru (manipulate) but the head of orphanage changed her name to Aya. Aya is mischievous but is in good terms w. adults. She doesn't like how other kids are seen as dolls (cute) by the adults trying to choose adapted kids. One day a witch and demon picked her to be her helper. House w. full of mysterious and hidden rooms. trapped and Earwig. She is complaining about being manual and not teaching her magic. Demon checking and help restricting her, while cat can talk. It's that cat who taught he magic. lol @ that cursed doll actually worked. Scary bugs... and that angered demon, which giving her chance to find out about Earwig (all three are band members). Because of that, condition changed (they are kinder). Flattering them and little demons. The anime ends w. her friend visiting... w. her mother?! lol @ Watching Hawl's Moving Castle on TV at ED ED: "Atashi no Sekai Seifuku (あたしの世界征服)" by Sherina Munaf (シェリナ・ムナフ) She also performed IN song (the band's song) Don't disturb me. https://natalie.mu/comic/news/409807 |
I ♥ Two Syaorans from Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE and TRC!!! |
Jan 26, 2021 9:32 AM
#2
I really liked the characters of this movie and was liking the story progression too, but it ends too suddenly. I think this would be better as a tv show? idk |
Feb 5, 2021 9:25 PM
#3
Feb 6, 2021 1:19 PM
#4
I probably placed my expectations too high for this movie. Not that they were high, but they were still high enough apparently. This film was super disappointing. As a huge Ghibli fan, I just wanted a movie that could stand on its own, even if not as good as the rest of the Ghibli catalog. When the trailer came out, I figured that the CGI would be a little distracting but there seemed to be an interesting world with a nice country vibe soundtrack by Kacey Musgraves to accompany an engaging story. Sadly, the CGI might have actually have been the best part of the movie. While the CGI wasn't the best, and lots of design choices left much to be desired, there were times where the CGI looked good. But even if it looked the best ever, it wouldn't have made up for the rest of the movie. The music was not as advertised. It was mostly done for a single flashback scene and moments that tried reminiscing back to that scene. I would have loved the entire movie to have a country soundtrack, but aside from one flashback scene, it barely played a factor. The plot as well was super infuriating, as there wasn't one. A girl gets adopted, then stuff happens. Then somehow she ends up being in charge. It really doesn't bother showing how that happens in any believable way. It's like they skipped a third of the movie due to time restraints. It's like they go from A to B to C to Z and hope the audience doesn't know the rest of the alphabet. And the ending is the weirdest part of the movie, as it makes it seem like there may be more, but it's hard to imagine there will be, so it just comes across as a huge question mark rather than a hype moment. There was a lot of missed potential and many plot threads were left abandoned and the world building was non-existent, which is a huge issue for a magical world. The characters themselves also weren't all that likable. In conclusion, I am glad I watched it and am glad Ghibli is still making content, but I probably won't be watching this again. It had many issues aside from the CGI that most will point at and in the end, unlike other Ghibli films, this doesn't feel like it was teaching anything of value, which is a huge detriment. |
Feb 6, 2021 4:16 PM
#5
i was really liking the movie... until the end came and i was like.. what, theres no ending! is like theres a second movie, but there isnt :( |
Feb 7, 2021 11:11 AM
#6
One of Ghibli's weakest films. I do appreciate that they're doing something different with the animation, but unfortunately it's just really bland and forgettable. Although it is cool to hear Kacey Musgraves in an animated film. |
Feb 8, 2021 2:28 AM
#7
What a bizarre ending, it was like reading half a novel then just skipping to the last page. Obviously Aya grew on them, although it was worded as 'took over' but how did her Mother end up reconciling with her old friends? We saw them chasing her in the beginning (yellow car) but the flashback implied she wasn't running from them but an organisation of 12 witches? The Mother said she'd be back for Aya but ends up adopting the boy? I guess Mandrake is Aya's real Father since him and the Mother almost kissed in the flashback? Ugh, it spent so long on SOL then skipped all the important parts. Cover is also a little misleading, music was barely featured. Idk why Ghibli bothered only to do such a sub-par job 5/10 |
Feb 8, 2021 10:18 AM
#8
I loved it. It was a great film to watch Cgi was really good. Character were lovable (interesting Protagonist, slightly different kind from normal ghibli girls and the villans in the movie did not felt like ur generic child bullying hags and mandrake was a enigma. They were very likeable character) I liked the music, op and ed Plot is probably the weakest part of film but still had a lot of potential. They are still many thing felt unresolved (I feel like some ghibli films has the plot issue, they all feel more plot to be desired). This one was like a harry potter elements melted into ghibli style which is interesting. Though the story would have worked lot better in a tv series format. Overall I found this one better than Kiki's delivery service which (a fellow Ghibli witch film) but not as good as Mary and the witch flower( a similar witch film) and far from Howl's moving castle (from same author). I think its a 7 for me. I am really interested in how the source material looks like (probably will check it out) |
AdampkFeb 27, 2021 12:13 PM
Click for a anime mashup! Still not gone bandwagon u, keep crying. Here u are welcome to CRINGE at my EXISTENCE |
Feb 8, 2021 9:54 PM
#9
Damn what happened to the final act of the movie?? Talk about an unsatisfying ending. Easily the worst Studio Ghibli movie I've watched. |
whats a signature |
Feb 9, 2021 12:07 AM
#10
I really wanted to like this movie but halfway through it didn’t go anywhere. Movie starts off with an interesting enough mystery, Harry Potter esque. Makes you think it’s gonna go the Harry direction , but we’re left completely hanging on that end. There’s no characters to really like and the two characters with any depth to them are kinda locked off from us for the entire movie. Earwig is your typical stubborn girl character. She wants everything her way except she doesn’t throw tantrums to get it , she plays up the cutesy factor and manipulates people to get her way. She complains a lot and is very pushy. It’s hard to really want her to win cause we’re constantly unaware of how she really is. The witch is one note, worms. The mandrake is very interesting . There was a good dynamic with him that started developing but ear wig barely gave is a second thought . Everything about him is interesting but for most of the movie he’s locked away from us. The cat Thomas he’s just very sly , it was hard to know if he was even genuinely trying to help or not . Music is good , soundtrack is interesting. Cgi is very well done: looks great. I know those aesthetic pages are gonna eat this movie up. Movie feels halfway done just like the secret world of arriety. Feels like once the movie gets going and the stuff we sat through starts to pay off it just ends Why did i set through 40 minutes of earwig complaining about wanting to learn spells just to not see her do that? I’m just very confused on what happened here. Doubt we’ll ever get a part 2 but i would like one. Idk if the budget ran out or they just stopped caring. |
Feb 10, 2021 7:52 PM
#11
This movie is a complete pile or garbage. Something I would expect form an indie animator to prep for a youtube. |
Feb 11, 2021 1:25 AM
#12
It's... Okay? I guess. It ends really really abruptly, it feels like there should've been 2 times as much movie as there really was. I thought the CGI looked really ugly at first, but I think that's just from the shock of Ghibli doing CGI instead of 2D animation for once. The feeling of it looking horrifically ugly wore off about half of the way through, and after that point I just found it to look kind of mediocre at worst. Everyone's skin and hair look like they're made of plastic and I'm not the biggest fan of how all the people were animated, but the scenery was generally pretty well done. Oh yeah, and the dub. I don't normally bother with dubbed anime personally, but I've found dubs of Ghibli movies to be generally pretty good in the past. This one was not very good though, probably owed to the fact that it's not dubbed by Disney or one of their subsidiaries like I believe all the past Ghibli movies I've watched in English have been. I'll probably have to watch it one more time with the original Japanese voices. |
ngoomieFeb 11, 2021 1:50 AM
Feb 12, 2021 10:40 AM
#13
This is so ugly-looking. I can't wait to hear what Daddy has to say about this trainwreck. |
Feb 12, 2021 11:39 AM
#14
I like it more that I expected. The Movie was pretty cute and funny. The end is a little open? But I still like This Movie. |
Feb 18, 2021 2:07 AM
#15
Really does feel like an episode 1 doesn’t it. Lmao. |
Feb 21, 2021 7:57 AM
#16
Feb 24, 2021 12:33 AM
#17
What a lame ending.What the point of this movie? |
Feb 28, 2021 7:22 AM
#18
Ghibli's entry into full 3DCG gets a lot of hate. Unjustly. The characters are edgy in a good way, the craftsmanship of 3D acceptable. But there isn't much of a story, it's girl witch SoL, with an anti-climatic end. No masterpiece, but not disaster either. (5/10) I think this TV movie (!!!), with it's budget limitations shows Gorou Miyazaki's plan to keep Studio Ghibli alive and independent. Which is not a given, as artistically brilliant Takahata's last movie (Kaguya-hime) was, as much it was a financial flop. So a baby step and bread-and-butter movie like this one is a pretty smart move. The theme, coming of age of a witch girl, has a good tradition with Ghibli - Kiki and Howl's and more. So they take a classic theme and embrace Western 21st century production standards as good as they can. Despite whining fans, the days of mainly hand-drawn 2D animation are counted. So going all out to the same tools the role models Pixar and Disney use is the right decision. The result looks a bit stiff and clumsy still, movements and hair in particular, but uncanny valley was avoided. Ghibli's staff has mastered 3DCG, future projects will only get better now. Ghibli has to find their own style, Japanese touch and story type to establish themselves as an equal compared to Pixar and Disney. The rather edgy and gray character writing in Aya to Majo is a step towards that. In the story department, they picked an incomplete novel as source, for whatever reason. So the movie feels incomplete as well. It's SoL world building and planting seeds for story development, but it never harvests. This may mean there are already plans for a sequel or a series. After all the NHK is a co-producer, it would make economic and business development sense. This movie is the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. Gouro decided to make it a hard cut, and that is fine with me. This movie isn't perfect by any means, but I'm glad to see they have a plan for the future which is more than enshrining and milking their glorious past. Godspeed, Ghibli. |
inimFeb 28, 2021 7:25 AM
Mar 3, 2021 10:26 PM
#19
This Movie need more 30 min for Aya and her mom scene. Uncompleted Movie ☹️ |
Mar 5, 2021 3:43 AM
#20
This movie is so disappointingly pointless. I think the 3D animation is cool and almost on par with disney and pixar animation. Sadly the plot ruined everything. |
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Mar 5, 2021 2:43 PM
#21
I had 0 expectations. I haven't fallen for a SG release Hayao started turning the reins over to Goro. Earwig wasn't bad, but it's not good either. Right as it gets good, it ends! The book is incomplete and so is the movie. |
Mar 7, 2021 12:24 AM
#22
inim said: I think this TV movie (!!!), with it's budget limitations shows Gorou Miyazaki's plan to keep Studio Ghibli alive and independent. Which is not a given, as artistically brilliant Takahata's last movie (Kaguya-hime) was, as much it was a financial flop. So a baby step and bread-and-butter movie like this one is a pretty smart move. Wasn't it only a TV movie because of COVID? |
Apr 1, 2021 1:44 PM
#23
I quite like this movie. Even if the story is not extraordinary, the character are really nice and the CG really fit the magical SoL theme. The only disapointement is the end. I was very surprised to see this movie ends so quickly. Uncompleted Movie ^ This |
Apr 11, 2021 8:13 AM
#24
May 3, 2021 12:52 PM
#25
After watching Ronja i sure wasn't afraid of 3D CG animation. And also it was nice to see characters from Ronja making cameo appearance here. Overall it was fun to watch. It felt very similar to Ronja. And i like it. Very nice music and animation. Ending was weird, but now, when i read from other review, that it based on an incomplete book, it make sense then. |
May 30, 2021 7:58 PM
#26
Jun 23, 2021 3:50 PM
#27
I really love this movie, but wish it was longer. Really wanted to see more of Earwig(the band) since it felt like we didn't get to see enough of their backstory. :( And I agree the ending was sudden. But the movie was enjoyable either way. Easily a great addition to the Ghibli library! <3 |
KittyxChanJun 23, 2021 3:55 PM
You have been blessed by sparkly bishie Cherry Blossom <3 You're welcome ^^ |
Oct 9, 2021 7:49 AM
#28
I Like this Movie, but the ending is kind of forced, the reason this movie didn't win the oscar championship |
Nov 2, 2021 3:15 PM
#29
I gave this a fair shot, but man was this bad. I haven't seen such a pointless movie in a long time. Like others before me have asked...what was the point? 2/10. |
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Nov 18, 2021 6:46 AM
#30
this anime is extremely cute, it needs more love. some details in the story were confused, but it doesn't change how adorable this anime is. I loved the characters. Too bad that a lot of people didn't like the anime because it's in computer graphics. Sorry for the bad English. |
Absurdo_NNov 18, 2021 6:53 AM
Nov 19, 2021 1:32 AM
#31
Ok. The movie was entertaining, in a way it's weird(the ending...TELL ME SOMETHING ELSE!!!) but it was good. Earwig's song was really good. |
Nov 20, 2021 10:46 AM
#32
As a great admirer of the films of the Ghibli studio, I am deeply disappointed. The film is enjoyable, the characters and the story are not bad but you can't help but think about how great it would have been with traditional animation and drawings while watching. At the end of the film, during the credits with the hand-drawn drawings, there comes 100% proof of how unfortunate CGI was. It looked like a normal Pixar film, it lacked everything that makes watching a Ghibli film magical. It would be nice to see the same film made with the traditional method; if there were even only the home video version, I would prefer it a thousand times over this one! |
Dec 11, 2021 12:32 PM
#33
I did rate it pretty high. It had a great story, interesting characters and nice animation (although they could have worked a bit more on some of the faces). It is far underrated IMO. And this is said by a huge Studio Ghibli fan. |
Moogal12Dec 11, 2021 12:37 PM
っ◔◡◔)っ ♥Average gamer and anime enjoyer♥ |
Dec 16, 2021 11:23 AM
#34
Don't think its as bad as the score on here suggests. It was quite enjoyable, however the end was pretty abrupt for my taste and some questions remained unanswered. Also it kind of felt like the real story would only begin now, where the movie ended. We also didnt get more info about the 12 witches so quite a few loose ends... Still it will get a 7-8/10 from me. |
Trying to watch all available anime series so you won't have to anymore, the list of anime I can recommend is still in progress, tho |
Feb 8, 2022 8:26 AM
#35
It left so many questions unanswered... Pretty much every important question is left unanswered, starting from if the redhead is Aya's mother, then Mandrake is her father or what? What did the redhead do to have all the 12 witches (who are yet another unexplained mystery) after her ass? Is Aya still in any danger if someone learns who she is? Damn, it just feels like a good hour of the movie was cut out, and I don't like it at all. |
ったく、嫌な世の中だよ。 |
Feb 8, 2022 4:36 PM
#36
Feels very generic, like I've seen this exact movie before but done better? There's very little excitement here. Watch Kiki's Delivery Service instead. |
Feb 15, 2022 6:14 PM
#37
This is unironically the only good thing Ghibli ever made. They should really just accept their true calling - creating cheap adaptations of mid-tier Western properties much better than anything they could ever imagine to make in-house. 8/10. |
Oct 25, 2022 7:48 PM
#38
I was hesistant to watch this with all the negative reviews and backlash but I gave a shot anyway and I don't regret it. This was a very fun movie. |
Jan 5, 2023 6:36 PM
#39
So what is the point of this movie anyway? I watched the first minutes of the protagonist's mother fleeing some "12 witches" then leaving the girl in the orphanage and I was expecting that they would develop this in the movie (I didn't watched the trailer nor I had read the synopsis of the movie, I watched it without expecting anything and I even so I felt disappointed). I guess since it's shorty it could be entertaining to a kid who is their main audience and who wouldn't care about plot wholes but where did the rest of the story go? Why Aya's mother only returned in the end? She adopted Custard?? Was Madrake Aya's father?? Bella Yaga and Mandrake are married or siblings?? If no why they live together? What happened to the 12 witches ???? Why the 90% of the movie was inside the house? Besides this I didn't think that the cgi was that bad and I also don't think that this is the worst Ghibli movie because people who said this probably didn't watch Gedo Senki (which is their worse movie by the way). |
Jan 12, 2023 4:04 AM
#40
I feel like this movie was meant to be lon[font="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, \"Segoe UI\", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, \"Fira Sans\", \"Droid Sans\", \"Helvetica Neue\", sans-serif"]ger but studio ghibli simply didnt have the budget for it. Its beautiful and I liked where the story as going, but the story still simple disjointed and confused like it wanted to do various things but didnt. like the main blue haired witch was mean for most of the film until Earwig got her in THE MOST trouble shes ever been without any seeming consequences, the mom was gone for the entire filmi feel it woulda been nice to see earwig put the pieces together that the 3rd band member was her birth mother. but either way teh movies still decent 5/10 [/font] |
Mar 23, 2023 3:50 AM
#41
It had a lot of potential but they really had to cut it off as soon as her mother showed up. |
Jul 10, 2023 1:32 PM
#42
I'm not much of a 3D fan, so I got really excited about the sketches from the ending, haha. I thought to myself that the movie would have been better in 2D. Otherwise, the story left me a bit hanging. I feel there were many aspects put on the table and then abandoned. The unexpected appearance of Aya's mother at the end of the movie, it's only one of the many missing puzzle pieces. For instance, I wonder what happened to Aya's mother. Why did she leave the band after all? What happened to the witches she said she had to get rid of? What were those 12 witches anyway? Some sort of organization or something? The ending that showed only scenes of Aya, Yaga Bella, and Mandrake made me think that Aya's mother did not return in her daughter's life after all. I also wonder if Yaga Bella and Mandrake knew that Aya was their former colleague's daughter. It is not obvious at all. |
"The me today will not ever make the future me to regret!" (Emily Adachi from Air Gear: Kuro no Hane to Nemuri no Mori - Break on the Sky) |
Sep 9, 2023 2:13 PM
#43
I actually like this a lot. I'm not sure, but I think it ends abruptly because the book ends like that. Diana Wynne Jones, the author of the story (and Howl's moving castle) died the same year this work was published. She probably intended to make this a series instead of a standalone, or maybe even died before finishing the book (I'm uncertain if it released before or after her death). I think this movie was a decent experience though. I won't hold an authors death again them and tge adaptation. It was just a fun magical children's story |
Jan 1, 12:39 PM
#44
This is a stain on the filmography of Studio Ghibli. It doesn't deserve to exist. The only thing I kinda liked about this shitshow is that the witches were in a rock band. |
Mar 9, 11:43 AM
#45
It wasn't bad... but then it ends, and you're like "wtf it's ending now ??? where's the ending ?" |
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