Will be really interesting to see how this is gonna be received here in the west. It's a weird one. Couldn't help myself to actually feel disappointed after the credits rolled, and a lot of people in the audience felt the same way. It's super vague, the story jumps constantly, new ideas and (seemingly) new plotlines are constantly opened but never resolved. It's confusing. And because of this, I just never really cared about any of the characters. Which is something that usually never happens to me in a Ghibli film...no emotional attachement whatsoever. After sleeping over it and reading some reviews and interepretations from Japan, I can accept and respect the film much more now. It's a supposedly final goodbye from Miyazaki, a potpourrie of his ideas and visions, a micro-history of Ghibli itself. It's fine. But it's not for me and probably a lot of other people. But that's okay.

Maybe it’s because I watched this three hours after a funeral, but this made a ton of sense to me and resonated with me a lot. I do wonder if there’s some kind of informational gap between the sub and dub (I watched the sub), because I’ve read a number of comments/reviews after the leaving the theater that claim certain aspects were confusing and disjointed. And in a number of cases (not all, but many), I feel like the movie actually did tell you what was going on, either in the literal dialogue or the visual subtext. There is definitely room for interpretation and the insertion of your own life though. Ultimately this is a meditation on grief and moving on. People are not “boring” or “emotionless” when they’re grieving. Grief turns you into a shell, a husk, and you have to fight your way out. Sometimes while wrapped up in grief, you don’t want to do the right things, but you do them anyways because you know you have to. You might not do it with a smile on your face or a bounce in your step, but you do it nonetheless, because the ones you grieve for would want nothing less from you.

I think this will be a controversial movie. The story is about grief and can only be understood if you take it as an allegory. If you try to understand it at face value, you will be confused and disappointed, like some of the commenters here. By the way, this is kind of storytelling is not that far fetched from Ghibli movies, but this is certainly not as easy to consume as Totoro, for example. As someone who lost two parents a year ago, this was highly emotional for me and it made a lot of sense.

There are ratings before the release? Damn the time travelers are busy.

A little boy who lost his mother in a fire is tormented by Danny De Vito disguised as a heron. The original title is taken from a Japanese novel from the thirties, but the film's plot is actually a loose adaptation of John Connolly's "The Book of Lost Things." Needless to say, we’re embarking on another journey into a fantastic world full of references and metaphors that only Miyazaki understands without caring about his audience. We’re asked to find our own interpretation, and personally, I saw it more as a tribute to the works that inspired Miyazaki over the years rather than mere references to his own films, as if he is pointing out that each generation’s narrative and cultural baggage are a product of the previous, in a continuous passing of the torch. The first part, laid-back and contemplative, oddly left a stronger impression on me, aided by the beautiful music and landscapes. However, once the magical journey began, I found the whole thing extremely cloying and narratively disjointed. Certainly, there are various fascinating sceneries and memorable moments, but the whole picture failed to convince me. In short, my basic review of most of Ghibli’s films.