Child of Kamiari Month

Meaningless movie.

What about her father?! And what about his grieve?

She's shown to be so rude to him.

At the end she didn't even understand the reason why her mother did that and way she need to do it.

She only did it because she likes to run!

I don't get it.

What a wonderful, beautiful film. Absolutely gorgeous animation and the story was so touching and moving that I found myself crying throughout. The film handles grief and moving forward so perfectly and it really hit home with me. I loved this so much that I almost gave it a 9. Please watch for yourself and do not let the haters sway you. This movie is fantastic.

The main story of the movie was confusing. It danced around what seems to be the point of the movie - mourning, loss, & grief. Instead of getting into the details of the main character's grief and sense of loss, the movie makes her seem like an ungrateful spoiled brat. She was so irritating that my children were scolding her for her behavior!

What's more, the movie was littered with plot armor that made even my children lose respect for the story. Halfway through the film they were treating it like a Ghibli Spoof film and making jokes.

To summarize, I feel that this film's premise was solid but the execution left a great deal to be desired.

From the animation, to the music, to even the attention to Japanese culture is amazing. The English voice acting isn't the best, but the emotional character development more than makes up for it.

A cheap imitation of a Ghibli anime, this features all the typical clichés, but without eliciting any real emotion. You have the young spirited girl, the magical world she discovers, the strong emotions generated by her fridged mother, the cute companions, the important quest that for some reason depends on her efforts only and the dark villain. But at almost any level the main character is unsympathetic, her friends are pointlessly obtuse and without any credible reasoning for their actions, the villain is a shapeless blob that does absolutely nothing than lurk around and the quest is mired in feudal godly bureaucracy and small island mythology.

Bottom line: remove the fake Miyazaki veneer and all you have is a unlikeable girl running around because she enjoys it, but can't get herself to admit it because her mother died.