L'Imaginaire

I've been trying to get into more anime, and after seeing the trailer for this, I decided to give it a shot-and I'm so glad I did. I honestly don't get why the rating isn't higher. It's a beautiful story, told with so much care and heart, that it had me hooked from beginning to end.

What really stuck with me is how it explores the innocence of childhood-how kids, even in the middle of grief or loneliness, can create entire worlds of wonder and joy. And how sometimes, adults forget what that felt like, or worse, try to take it away. But this film feels like a quiet reminder to let our inner child breathe a little, to not lose sight of that part of us that knows how to dream.

The sheer number of ideas this film has is, on its own merit, stunning, not to mention the animation and music!

The characters are so vivid and likeable. From scene one, I was grabbed and rooting for the characters. The villain is spine-chilling and has a truly classic dark feel. Mr. Bunting (the villain) has such a great dark mirror side to the story that brings the movie a great edge.

The way the film explores its concepts of imagination rightfully so has its own leaps of imagination poured into them. And wonderfully enough, I never felt like we had an overabundance of world-building or over-explanations... everything fit just right.

A truly captivating movie that I will absolutely be watching again. Genuine animation magic.

Giving this an 8/10 rating

New film from Studio Ponic, which is and adaptation of an english fantasy novel. This film covers ground that has been stepped on by 'Imaginary Friends', which is still out in the cinema, so you can do this as a double bill if you want, both films are very good and quite dream like, but this more so as it's animated, giggling it a very different feel, the story is different, but the themes is both films are the same.

In this film, the power of the mind is very well explored into dark territory, as the evil in this, is evil, and is quite scary, and you will go-'what the hell is this',, and the film has these comments in it, and some quite joyful scenes, and the characters, real or not, a very well defined and worth sicking with.

I managed to see this in the cinema, and as always, this is the best way for an very well crafted animation, you will get the most out of it.

Studio Ponoc is a studio that have some of the staff from Ghibli studio. The films that they made prior to "The Imaginary" have the essence of the magic that encapsulate the spirit of Ghibli. It's like a love child of Ghibli, growing up and make their own steps. The Imaginary is a testament of that fact. The ratings doesn't do justice to the quality this film exudes: Top tier animation, beautiful sceneries, touching story, and magical sentiment throughout. I watched from start to finish and I cannot think of one thing to complain about this film. Granted, i wasn't expecting anything to top the masterpiece Ghibli delivers over the years prior to watching this, but trust me, just turn off your judgmental brain, let the imagination runs wild, and have fun watching this beautiful film.

I was really looking forward to watching this with my kids after I saw the trailer but the end result was very disappointing for me. It had the surface charm of a Studio Ghibli flick, which we are huge fans of. What could have been a work of art sadly falls short for one very distracting reason. The story, art design, characters, world, etc. Are all fantastic and it would be a visual treat were it not for the jarring camera movements, jittering, and blurriness that are prevalent throughout the movie, especially during high action sequences. Made it very difficult for me to stay focused through the whole thing and nearly caused motion sickness in parts.