द इमैजिनरी

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 just watched a new anime kid's movie on Netflix called The Imaginary. It's about a little girl and her imaginary friend who are threatened by someone who has lived for hundreds of years by devouring children's imaginary friends. I think kid's movies can be broken into two types. There are Miyazaki's films, which are the best. They were made because they had to be made. They were a compulsive expression of the artistic mind behind them and are not restricted to a juvenile viewing public. Then there are kid's movies that were made simply to be a kid's movie and make a buck from the kid audience. They range from utter trash like The Goonies to okay movies like The Imaginary. It has some good ideas in it and I guess it is worth a watch.

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.

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.

This sure seems like it belongs in the same universe as Happy! That Imaginary blue donkey. Which was dark, but amazing.

This too. Is dark and amazing. Same plot as Happy too, pretty much.

Just a couple of things keep it from being perfect. THe boy talking at the beginning is super annoying. Just repeating the same line over and over again. 2. Its dark. Very Dark for an animated film.

And the worst thing about this movie is the ending. After all that...reconnecting with BingBon and everything and the characters talk about how this will be their final adventure? But why. This practically ruins the entire rest of the film. It doesnt make any sense within the context of the movie. It just happens for no reason.

Reminds me a lot of Happy, paprika, Studio Ghiibli.