Reviews

This film is an embarrassment and a hideous stain on Studio Ghibli's mostly immaculate track record, the same way Cars 2 is for Pixar. Goro Miyazaki isn't anywhere near his father in talent but I at least enjoyed From Up on Poppy Hills and somewhat enjoyed Tales From Earthsea but this is just too much. I am genuinely astonished at how awful this film was and couldn't wait for it to end. The characters are bland and uninteresting, with the Mandrake having the most potential but he barely gets any screentime. The animation is absolutely putrid to watch and I was dearly wishing it was simply hand drawn like the animation in the ending credits. There is no real plot which by itself is fine since My Neighbor Totoro didn't really have one either but this film is also incredibly boring (even more than the tear inducingly boring Ocean Waves) and lacks any kind of charm or sense of wonder. I truly struggled to stay awake even with its short runtime. Sound is mostly fine I guess. Don't remember the soundtrack at all though, but the voice acting was decent (but then again, I've yet to watch an anime with bad voice acting).