NiNoKuni (Yoshiyuki Momose)

[Philip J. Fry]

Trailer:
[

Show Spoiler

]

IMDb / wiki / RT / Tropes

On Netflix

[megladon8]

Is this at all related to the video games?

[Stay Puft]

Is this at all related to the video games?

Yeah, it's an adaptation. Not a direct adaptation of the plot, apparently, but loosely connected or something. I didn't hear a lot of good things but we'll see what Fry has to say!

[Philip J. Fry]

I've never played the games, so I can't tell how connected they are.

The movie itself, despite being made a different studio, it still retains Ghibli's particular style (not only it is based on a Video game animated by Ghibli, director Momose is a Ghibli vet), particularly with the character designs and attention to detail, plus it has Joe Hisaishi doing Joe Hisaishi things. My only issue here were a couple CGI scenes that were very noticeable and a little distracting.

The movie's problems lie elsewhere: first, the main protagonists Yuu and Haru don't have the weight to completely carry the movie the same way other Ghibli characters have in the past, specially since they have to go between two parallel worlds (ala John Carter), and thus, carry two distinct plots. Second, as visually lush as it may look at times, the medieval fantasy world were most of the movie happens isn't particularly distinctive from any other fantasy medieval world you will see in an anime (which is weird, because, well, Ghibli).

And third: the plot had a few screws that needed to get thightened up a little. It isn't specially notable at first, however, once you reach the final third, the movie sort of devolves into a series of flashbacks which feel a little out of place (at least at first) and it has a few revelations that feel a little too reliant on exposition (the main villain's revelation is essentially an info dump involving a bunch of characters I didn't knew and would've felt exactly the same if it had been simplified). It's not all bad though: the movie is still pretty entertaining and still manages to have a few nice character moments (the best being one in which the princess does this dance in a pond which is just pure Ghibli magic).

Overall it's a bit of an interesting failure. If there was a movie I'd compare it to, it's Tales of Earthsea.