Âya to majo

Studio Ghibli's latest movie experimented with CGI anime instead of the traditional hand-drawn method. Directed by Goro Miyazaki, and Hayao also played a part in planning this movie.

The CGI was pretty good. However, I prefer the traditional hand-drawing more, as it felt more authentic and raw. This movie did not feel like a Studio Ghibli movie. Instead, it's like watching an average American animation movie.

Even more, the story was weird and a bit boring. This is the second Ghibli movie straight to TV, the first being Ocean Waves. The plot revolving around Earwig, who got adopted by a grumpy couple and was ordered to work tirelessly. Because at the orphanage home she was the boss and manipulated people around her to obey her, now she wanted to manipulate this new couple also. It's so weird that this was the message that the movie wanted to show audiences.

Although there were some funny moments, there wasn't much to the story. Most of the story was just Earwig being ordered around, and then the climax, if that's even called a climax, happened. The story then abruptly ended. There were plot points that were basically ignored.

Overall, problematic and short story that could be explored more. Maybe Ghibli should stick with the hand-drawn animation that made the studio famous. 4/10.

Started out with a great premise, then lost sight of it in the tangles it wove. The CGI characters had the look of those on cheap TV kids' shows, but the backgrounds in which they moved were Ghibli quality (of the past) in detail. As one of the other reviews mentioned, this was 2/3rds of a movie. That might be fortunate - character development was getting really annoying, especially that of Earwig herself.

Whyyyyyyy did Ghibli go 3D computer-animated?! This just felt uninspired. A really boring witch, especially for the main villain. There's no soul here. Rewatch Howl's Moving Castle instead.

I didn't connect with the characters or the story. It is not entertaining to watch horrid treatment of children. I didn't like it at all.

CGI was terrible, the movie wasn't good, the characters were terrible this was just horrible.