I'm 27 and I just saw this anime for the first time. In fact, it's the first anime I ever saw and I only watched it because a friend kept telling me how great it was. It had been sitting on my shelf for over two years and last night I figured: what the hell, let's try it.

This movie blew me away. It so perfectly captures the innocence and the exploratory nature of childhood. It enables you to view an ordinary day through the viewpoint of two ordinary young girls. It shows how boring we adults are, and how much fantasy, discovery, emotions and playfulness we have lost since we were kids. There's no macho behaviour, no bad guys, no evil to beat, just two kids growing up in a normal life, but extraordinarily presented.

A perfect coming-of-age movie and one of the most impressive movies I've ever seen. Already one of my all-time favourites. If the rest of Hayao Miyazaki's films are anything close to this, he will have a new lifelong fan.