Children Who Chase Lost Voices (CWCLV, dumb title) is, in my opinion (and in many others), an attempt to create and capture the charm of a Miyazaki film. There are direct and indirect parallels between this movie and Howl's Moving Castle or Princess Mononoke. Aspects like the look of the characters, the world design, and the themes seem derivative of (but not as good) Ghibli films. The music is boring. The characters are one-dimensional. The fantasy backdrop is unfinished and shallow. Everything is so dull and unoriginal, non-sensically messy and pretentious—it's an absolute disappointment.
SPOILERS AHEAD (If anyone cares)
Asuna (the protagonist) does nothing in this movie except be a damsel in distress and the complete opposite of her initial setup character. She was there because of circumstances. The movie tried to make a big deal out of this, but the answer was always plain and simple: She was, literally, dragged in there and the story. What was the lesson? To forgive someone who literally tried to kill you and your friend and put their wife's soul inside you? I thought they were going to be filling the roles of father and daughter in each other's lives. But after that ending, I don't want him anywhere remotely close to her. If only they did not ham-fisted unnecessary characters in their story and instead spent that time fleshing out the essential ones.
I know that it's not meant to be realistic. But come on, use that fucking gun, at least on those shadow crawler thingies. And this is not the only nitpick that annoyed me. There are a lot of other moments where they don't pay any attention to the details, which takes me out of an already sloppily written and bland movie. The dialogue is unnecessarily philosophical—Like you are a child, why are you talking like this? And if you are talking like this, why are you so dumb regarding everything else?
At least Shinkai tried to do something different in this one, and that's as far as my praise goes. It's so annoying because I know that he is talented, but he has put himself into a corner by writing the same type of stories again and again, especially with Your Name and Weathering With You. I want him to make something new and original, more thought out with better world-building and atmosphere and better multi-dimensional characters, as he did in Your Name. Let's see what he does with his new one. This tho is--Not Recommended.
