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Of course any new movie by Studio Ghibli is high on our to-watch list. So when it was announced that The Boy and the Heron was going to be shown in Dutch cinemas after Christmas, I kept an eye on the cinema schedules and our own schedule to see where they matched up.

So we went to see it in one of the smaller cinema’s, which gives a more intimate setting but also means that you get to sit right next to the people noisily eating chips…

I don’t think this is a typical Ghibli movie. There are some elements that are familiar from other Ghibli movies, like flashbacks to certain scenes and concepts. It’s like a tribute movie. Thematically, I think it’s most similar to Spirited Away, but it lacks the narrative thrust of it. It has lots of the magical realism that is familiar to any Ghibli fan, but there are more loose ends and unspecified circumstances than we are used to. It felt more like a conceptual sketch than the tight storytelling of other Ghibli movies.

At some parts, the animation was pretty spotty as well — it would have been fine for a TV series, but sub-par for a movie, and certainly for the budget of a Ghibli movie. (I admit I don’t know the economics of anime movie making, but with Miyazaki’s track record, I would assume an almost unlimited budget…)

That is not to say that it is a bad movie — you should certainly go see it, if you have the opportunity! It’s just that it falls short of other Ghibli movies. If this is going to be the final Miyazaki movie, then he is not ending his career on a high note, which is unfortunate.

Some movies we’ve seen in the recent past (for some definition of ‘recent’):

– The Goonies. Klik hadn’t seen it before, and I thought it was the quintessential Gen-X movie that everyone of our generation should see. It has it all: “free-range” kids getting into all kinds of dangerous situations, parents who are too busy to care, society starting to turn into a capitalistic hellscape that only caters to those with (lots of) money… And yes, there’s quite the adventure too! I heard rumblings about a remake or TV series, and I hope they get rid of the stereotypes when they do.

– E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. We had both managed to avoid this movie so far! Of course, it has had a massive impact on popular culture, so we knew what it was about, but had never actually seen it. We watched the 20th anniversary edition, which itself is now 20 years old! I thought it was… not great. There are many things that only become apparent when something goes wrong, like the link between the health of Elliot and E.T. One gets sick, and then the other does, too. Why? Well, they just do! Add in some miraculous, unexplained recovery and some bicycle racing and you get a really weird mess. Honestly, I don’t quite understand why people love this movie.

– Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the other Spielberg movie about humans meeting aliens. Again, Klik had not seen it. A much better movie, as it has a really clear progression from begin to end. I do question the decision to just let this rando get taken by the aliens without a second thought. What about his family? Klik pointed out that CEOTTK could be a precursor of ET, as there is a single mom of three and nobody knows where dad went, and the aliens are similar…

(On a personal note, I found it hard to watch the scenes where Roy descends into this hyper-focused manic episode and starts breaking stuff because he is overwhelmed with the urge to sculpt the mountain. When I was five, my father had an overstressed period, complete with throwing chairs through windows. That’s hard to deal with as a child so young, and I felt a lot of empathy with Roy’s children. This was even around the same time the movie came out, so it was all… so similar.)

– That Time I Reincarnated As A Slime: The Movie. It’s one of the first series in the ‘isekai’ genre, where someone from our time reincarnates as some kind of overpowered being in a fantasy world. The only catch is that this time, they get reincarnated as a slime, the low-level ‘mob monster’ of fantasy worlds. But like with most isekai series, there is a ridiculous power escalation, and by the time this movie is set, there is nothing that really threatens the main character anymore.

We saw this movie in the theatre, and I was happy that I had gotten discount coupons, because the movie is just not that great — it could have been a minor arc in a TV season, and even the animation wasn’t any better that the usual. And we were once again reminded of the big drawback of watching anime in theatres: all the other weebs…

– Yuru Camp: The Movie. Set an unspecified number of years after the series, the characters are now adults with actual jobs and responsibilities. But they still love camping, and then there is the idea to “revitalise” an area by creating a camping ground there! Just like the TV series, it’s quite inconsequential, but it is fun to see the characters grown up with (young) adult sensibilities.

Of course, the Japanese countryside is being depopulated as youngster move to the cities and older people stay behind. “Revitalisation” seems to be mostly along the lines of “build some touristy stuff for people from Tokyo to enjoy on the weekend”, which is not really sustainable and makes the whole country outside of the urban centers some kind of nostalgic theme park. But what do I know?

– Aria the Benedizione. It’s been so long ago that we watched the Aria TV series. Again, the main cast of the series are now working as full-fledged Undines, which gives room for their trainees to take up that mantle. I love how nostalgic and wistful this movie was, with some really nice and quiet character moments. Though if you’re unfamiliar with the TV series, none of it will make sense to you.