I understand why so many people loved it. This anime plays like a good piano song, inviting you to love and cry and say life is beautiful, yet in the end it's just some guy playing an instrument, pushing all of your buttons and teaching you nothing that isn't inside you already. So yes, it is touching some real emotional themes that most of us are sensitive to: the love of a mother, the love for a mother, the continuity of life through children, the meaning of destiny, the illusion of power and how individuals are just threads in a bigger tapestry. And it also has a nice refreshing idea behind it: a medieval world in which the main character is a centuries living girl that interacts with "our world" for the first time, experiencing both its beauty and horror. Yet in the end the characters feel bland, just threads in a tapestry that is, frankly, a bit bland.
So, good animation - although the hypersaturated colors and the never ending loud music lacked subtlety, good acting - although the characters were not that well fleshed out and most of them childish and annoying, a refreshing idea - but put in a story that had many gaps and a rather superficial view on life. Of course, that could have been the intention of the film makers, to give the viewer the kind of aloof perspective that a quasi-immortal person would have on life, while at the same time focusing on the hardships and beauty of life. If yes, then they succeeded. I've seen anime that have achieved a lot more with a lot less, though.
Bottom line: an above average anime, but a bit overrated if you ask me.
So, good animation - although the hypersaturated colors and the never ending loud music lacked subtlety, good acting - although the characters were not that well fleshed out and most of them childish and annoying, a refreshing idea - but put in a story that had many gaps and a rather superficial view on life. Of course, that could have been the intention of the film makers, to give the viewer the kind of aloof perspective that a quasi-immortal person would have on life, while at the same time focusing on the hardships and beauty of life. If yes, then they succeeded. I've seen anime that have achieved a lot more with a lot less, though.
Bottom line: an above average anime, but a bit overrated if you ask me.
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