DO NOT discuss the source material beyond this episode. If you want to discuss future events or theories, please use separate threads.
DO NOT ask where to watch/download this episode or give links to copyrighted, non-fair use material.
DO NOT troll/bait/harass/abuse other users for liking or disliking the series/characters.
DO read the Anime Discussion Rules and Site & Forum Guidelines.
DO NOT ask where to watch/download this episode or give links to copyrighted, non-fair use material.
DO NOT troll/bait/harass/abuse other users for liking or disliking the series/characters.
DO read the Anime Discussion Rules and Site & Forum Guidelines.
| 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. |
I ♥ Two Syaorans from Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE and TRC!!! |
| 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 |
Are you kidding me! I loved the movie, but the ending made me so mad! I need more now! Shame though, it looks like this didn't do well in japan. Hope we still get a continuation though.   |
on AhrumFeb 5, 2021 10:04 PM
    |
| 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. |
 |
| 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 :( |
| 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 |
| 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 |
|
| 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 |
| This movie is a complete pile or garbage. Something I would expect form an indie animator to prep for a youtube. |
 |
| 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
 |
| 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. |
| So the movie just... ends? Feels like the first act of a film and then the animators just gave up making any more. Nothing of substance occurs either. Gave this a 5/10 and Earwig should be happy for it. |
 |
| What a lame ending.What the point of this movie? |
 |
| 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
 |
| 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. |
  . |
| 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. |
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? |
|
| 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 |
| I don't mind the CGI, but this whole thing feels like a big prologue to something that we don't see. What about the Earwig band, who is the red-haired woman and why does Mandrake look like a deformed Henry Cavill? I guess we'll never know... |
 |
| That was very enjoyable, there will be a continuation or something? |
 |
| 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 ^^ |
| 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. |
       |
| 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
 |
| 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. |
| 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♥ |
| 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 |
| 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。 |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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). |
 |
| 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)  |
| 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. |
| It wasn't bad... but then it ends, and you're like "wtf it's ending now ??? where's the ending ?" |
More topics from this board
» Is this coming to Netflix?MrYandereFan26 - Feb 5, 2021 |
2 |
by bluefire35
»»
Oct 14, 2021 3:29 AM |
|
» Why is duration 1 minute?Zestiria - Jan 23, 2021 |
1 |
by Supercuecaaa
»»
Jan 26, 2021 9:31 AM |
|
» New information about the movieazertz99 - Jun 18, 2020 |
14 |
by MichaelJackson
»»
Dec 27, 2020 9:22 PM |