What even is there to say about this movie. A lot actually. Coming into this movie I was expecting a wholesome movie with good animation but nothing really special, but instead, I got a movie that could compete to be one of my favorites. This movie was beautiful in a lot of ways. The characters, the story, the animation, and the music were all so amazing that they outweighed the very little bad that there was. When I say there was very little bad I really mean it, I could only think of maybe one thing that I could call out as "bad" but in all reality, it's more of a nitpick of mine. Let's start with that one bad thing, then move onto all the good things.
Starting with the only nitpick I had with this movie. The relationship between the main Lady and Aoyama was honestly a little strange for me. In this, I directly mean the way the Lady interacted with Aoyama. I think that her relation to Aoyama should've maybe been expanded on a little more because the way it seemed was very weird. I assume from what is shown is that the Lady is some type of babysitter for Aoyama, but that just doesn't really make sense sometimes. If she were Aoyama's babysitter why doesn't she also take care of his sister? Also, it's shown multiply times that Aoyama's mother stays home, so why doesn't she take care of him? It's a very small detail but it can sometimes just be seen as weird.
With that out of the way, I can move on to the many things I loved in this movie. I'm going to touch on the characters, animation, and story beats.
First off, the characters in this movie seem so based in reality and I enjoyed that aspect of them a lot. Starting with our main character Aoyama, he's just a boy that happens to be really smart. That's his character and I really love that. He tries to act like nothing bothers him and as if he's above everything but, in reality, he does get put down and put his place by the Lady and his bullies. When he's with the Lady is where he tries to flaunt and be big, but it's actually when he's the most childish. The Lady speaks on this when she compares him to the penguin in the photograph that puffing up its chest even though he's the smallest one in the pack. I think that was really smart for the writers to implement. I really loved how Aoyama was so invested in the Lady's chest. As a young boy obviously he's going to be curious about a woman's body, mostly with how beautiful the Lady is. Next, you have Uchida who is the comic relief character. There isn't much to say about him. He does his job as a comic relief character and I really loved him for it. He was so cute and funny when he was just being clumsy here and there. With Hamamoto, there's a lot more depth and a lot more enjoyment to gain from it. She's not as flat as Uchida but also isn't too deep that she competes with Aoyama for screen time. She is smart and is shown as Aoyama's equal and it's portrayed pretty well. She helped push the plot forwards and added a little side story with Suzuki. Talking about Suzuki, he was one of Aoyama's bullies that ultimately ended up helping him. There wasn't much to him, but as a bully character that's what I expected. I thought it was really predictable that he liked Hamamoto but it still added to the story's overall enjoyment. All the rest of the characters weren't really important.
Onto the animation, it was amazing and beautiful for all of the 118-minute runtime. There wasn't one bit of this movie where I thought the animation could be better. I enjoyed this movie for its characters and writing but the amazing visuals really tied it all together. I would rewatch this movie without the subtitles just to see how pretty it really is. I have high respect for all the animators working on this anime.
Lastly, the story was just as phenomenal as any other aspect of this movie. The story changed a couple of times but any good movie does that. It never had a dull moment with the changing mysteries and with the kids searching around their city. Even with the changing story it managed to all come together and give a satisfactory ending. One thing I didn't like at first but ended up enjoying was the idea of death and goodbyes. It felt abrupt when Aoyama's sister came crying to him about their mother's death but it added another layer to the overall story that by the end was necessary. Deaths are never an easy thing to portray in children's movies but I think this movie did an amazing job with it.
Overall this movie was amazing I truly would recommend this for anyone and everyone. There's so much to enjoy in this movie and I wished I watched it earlier. Imma give this a 10/10, even though I did point out a small nitpick I had with this movie everything else in this movie vastly outways the small inconvenience that detail left on me. Go watch this movie with a family remember, a partner, or just by yourself, just make sure to watch it on a display that will show all of this movie's beautiful colors.
