Visuals: A+ *Beautiful animation that resembles those of the Studio Ghibli films. Lovely colors and really cute character designs. And the colors are gorgeous for the spellcasting.
Voice Acting: A+ *Great voice cast! I especially loved Jim Broadbent's voice for Doctor Dee and Ewen Bremner was hilarious as Flanagan. But everyone involved in the dub did a great job. Major props to Ruby Barnhill for her performance as Mary. In the majority of anime that I've seen, the voices and cries of kids makes my eardrums bleed. Ruby's voice was not only cute and emotional when the story needed it to be, but her crying sounded believable too!
Film Score: B *Like most film scores, there's some repetition and some filler, but overall, this has a lot of really pretty melodies which makes this a lot of fun to listen to both in and out of context of the film.
***My favorite track: Mary's Theme
(How could it be anything but Mary's Theme? Which features a gorgeous piano melody that is also heroic like our adorable little hero.)
Characters: B *The show is mostly about Mary as the others don't nearly get fleshed out as much as her, (which is honestly the film's biggest weakness. We needed to find out more about Peter and his relationship with his mother for the emotional attachment between the viewer and Peter to be stronger with his life being in danger( but they still all have a fun presence in the world and add that "Studio Ghibli" magic sort of feel. So it's a good thing that Mary was a really likable character and that the antagonists despite not having a lot of screentime were entertaining to watch.
Cringeworthy Anime Moments: N/A *Much like the Ghibli films, this movie was just a really well-made movie that will charm parents and kids alike. I have no complaints about this movie.
Opening Titles: N/A *But I will say that the opening sequence was a fantastically animated action sequence that grabs the viewer's attention from the very beginning. The ending song was ok, but I was hoping for something that gave made me want to stay and listen to the end credits. I wanted something memorable and cute like Mary's Theme and instead, we got an ok but forgettable J-pop song to close it off.
Final Verdict: 7/10 *While the story might not seem as original and fresh as the two family-friendly Ghibli films that I've seen thus far, I will say that this had a much better ending than either of those films had And that's because instead of adding something super convenient to tie loose ends and to make things end happily for our characters, this movie follows it's own rules and Mary is able to save the day using magic that we've already seen her use. My main complaint is that the movie feels short due to how little the world was explored at the castle and how little we know about the other characters. I loved Mary, but I wanted to love Peter and the film didn't give us the chance to do so. But even so, this was a charming film with beautiful imagery and very pretty music. I still would recommend it to anyone that wants to watch a really good family film.
