My Oni Girl

It is plain. It is shallow and uninspiring. There is nothing unique in this movie, nothing that could really catch your attention and stay with you for a long while. It is almost formulaic. You won't see anything that can surprise you here, and there are maybe just a couple of shots that may potentially be exciting, but that's it.

Even one of the main cornerstones of the premise of the movie, Oni hiding for some reason, starts to fall apart quite early, falls apart even more once the "Hidden Village" is visited, and completely crumbles, with a single comment in the very end of the movie.

Yes, animation is good here, the art style is good, too, even though kind of boring, but it means nothing is story is not good. Don't get me wrong, it may be quite ok for children, but for me, who saw a lot of other movies and shows with similar idea, it's just boring. And it feels like, writers did not bother to even think through the world they are describing.

"My Oni Girl" plays with fire, in it utilizes a lot of story tropes that drive me crazy in less talented hands. I typically hate stories where misunderstandings lead to people running away. I hate vague world building with unclear consequences. And I hate when stories take an extreme tonal shift part way through the story. But, in this film, these things didn't bother me as much. The secret to that success comes down to the likability of our main characters.

The animation and voice acting are both really good. I want to give a special shoutout to Victoria Washington who plays Tsumugi in the English Dub, she does a great job conveying all the emotions this character goes on.

The first half of the movie is almost formatted like it could be episodes in an anime series. The two leads come across various characters on their adventure and help them out in some way. This isn't a format I typically enjoy. But in this one we get to see how kind and thoughtful our main character Hiigari is. Hiigari is just the nicest guy, the type of guy that would give you the shirt off his back.

The worldbuilding might be vague, but the audience is given just enough information to keep things grounded yet mysterious.

The movie takes a drastic turn in tone about halfway through. Always refreshing when a movie keeps you on your toes.

Much like the Tsumugi, the movie might be a little demon, but it so cute and likable I can't help but enjoy it.

Had this movie recommended on my Netflix and just watched it because I was bored and don't know what else to watch. The animation was nice but the whole story and plot was just poorly explained. So many unanswered questions, so many things happened for the sake of happening. So many "WTF", "why", "what is the goal here" moments. At the end, the person missing for years just came home from a place within a few hours of running from the village she was disappeared from. No explaination of why she had to go there, why can't she just go back. Tsumugi just found her and then everybody go back hom lol. I was like "WHAT?!". I was so sure it must have been a sloppy animated version of some manga/novel where a lot of details were cut to fit in the film because there were SO MANY details unexplained. But nope. It's an original movie and wasn't based on any story. What the hell. Just a bunch of random things happening, random goals for characters to chase and everything worked out just because it's the end of the movie.

This movie started with promise and held interest until the last 20 minutes or so. At that point very strange things started happening with no rational explanation or relation to the plot (such as people suddenly falling through the air for no reason... and without dying, as a start). There was such an extreme amount in this movie that is totally left unexplained:

Why the mother left in the first place.

What are Oni? (The girl and her village definitely doesn't fit traditional explanation.)

What are the Snow Gods and why are they attacking Oni?

I would go on with several more items but that would get into spoilers... if it's possible to spoil a movie with no actual plot.

There are so very many strings left dangling at the end of this movie, and it is so disappointing after a promising start. I don't really understand why anyone would like this movie, nor why anyone would think it has exceptional animation, because the animation is merely average.

I would have to call the concept uninspired, the story-line unfulfilling and lazy, and the overall movie a waste of viewer time. I will never understand how scripts like this ever make it to production. Evidently the writers/director had something they saw in their mind and just took it for granted the audience would "get it". But there's not enough substance to this movie to even call it a story. It's pointless and without satisfying explanation of mysteries presented throughout-- with the audience left hanging at the end.

It's a beautiful animation, but personally I found it limp and empty. Can be a good choice for children's maybe, but don't watch it to have a good time or good thinking.

I was really bored, there were terrible lengths and poorly managed pacing for my taste. There's some unexplained mysteries, normaly I don't like stories that leave mysteries open and without explanation, but they were so little captivating that I didn't even tried to think about them.

I nosedived several times and sped through the end... Nothing special about it, it left me with a kind of time lost feeling.

Probably not my style.