I thought this was a lovely Miyazaki film. Bold and colorful characters and set pieces, set in an entirely new world filled with mysterious magic and rambunctious creatures galore. It's a good watch for sure and I recommend it.

I'm having a hard time deciding where to put this in my hierarchy of Ghibli films, and that's for several reasons, but the main one I'll write about here is the world-building. On one hand, I thought the world-building was done exceptionally well, there's so many interesting things they present for you to think about. But on the other hand, not much of what makes the world interesting is explored or explained. It's nice to have such a dense world, and maybe I've been spoiled by movies lately in knowing exactly what's going on, but it did make me feel a bit conflicted in that regard.

I would love to do a second watch of the movie to try and catch more of its subtleties as well and try to break down a little more of Miyazaki's rhetoric, which is also something I found to be a little difficult to extract while viewing, but I'm not hating the idea of watching again! Everyone who worked on this movie have poured their heart and soul into it, and it really shines through. Definitely one of my top movies from this year.