Âya to majo

Saw this during the world premiere, an NHK broadcast (I'm in Japan and speak Japanese) and, while the CGI was initially off-putting - it looks like every other Japanese cartoon-to-CGI adaptation but with occasional Ghibli Eyes, and plastic SF5 Ken Banana Hair on everyone - it gradually started to win me over. Then, right when the story progression suggests that the third act is going to begin, as the past catches up with everyone, so that we can bring everything to a satisfying narrative conclusion... instead, we just get a smash cut to black and the credits.

The ending 100% feels like the cliffhanger to make you want to watch the second half of the movie. Unfortunately, so far as I am aware, there IS no second half. So instead, the movie just kind of tosses a bunch of narrative threads out, ignores all of them for nearly its entire runtime, and then remembers them all juuuuuust long enough to remind you that it ignored them entirely, before suddenly grinding to a halt.

Reasonably charming at times, if you're willing to accept that basically nothing that happens in the movie matters at all, and that there's no ending. Or, in other words, it's a modern Ghibli movie, I guess. Goro Miyazaki has inherited his father's knack for telling two thirds of a story.

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.

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.

Did they really end the movie like that? lol

It felt like a first episode or half worked pilot for a series that was never meant to get picked up.

Now we'll never know what happens.

I gave 5 points because it had good ideas, but I took away 5 points because of the "ending" and the lack of a real conclusion. It goes nowhere.

I'm expecting lots of people to hate this movie. I hate when movies do that. It's very annoying. The Devil Inside and The Turning did the same thing. They present ideas and characters, but do nothing with them.

I saw today that there was a new film from studio Ghibli, and I got excited. Then I watched it... I shouldn't have. The story begins a bit confusing, it's very disjointed and plays out like a montage, as the whole movie sort of seems to. Things begin to pick up around the middle, and you start to trace the movie so far, and it leads your mind to many possibilities that you can theorize may come to pass. When the time comes to deliver on even a single one of the things that were foreshadowed, it never does. The entire film feels like a budget toddler program, like something from Cocomelon... and it's insulting that it bares the Studio Ghibli name. The ending was a big slap in the face, and everything you have been anticipating gets dumped in your lap like a curtain reveal, amd the movie ends, with no rhyme or reason, it's just over. What?