The first Miyazaki film that doesn’t use his usual bag of surrealist tricks. Sure, the lead characters consist of a witch and a talking cat, but besides that it stays fairly grounded. It takes place in a recognizable location (it looks like Austria/Switzerland to me?) and once again the worldbuilding is very immersive, easily the best thing about the animation and film as a whole. The tone is very wholesome, it’s a light and breezy watch with beautiful visuals and a great score. However, much like _My Neighbor Totoro_, it doesn’t take enough artistic risk. It’s a fairly generic coming-of-age story that doesn’t hit many emotions or ideas that will stay with me for a longer period of time. It’s certainly more eventful than that film, and the more well defined protagonists make this a more engaging watch, but it’s too predictable and disposable for it to be great.

6.5/10