Watching this for the first time..

Rating: 7/10 (17 April 2011)

I am not familiar with the Japanese anime movies - and this seems to be one of the classics of this genre, and so I thought I would finally get around to watching this particular movie - the subtitled English version.
The art style and animation does stand out as being something special and well executed. However the storyline line - and ending, is not something I would say would impress me. I did not understand the ending and later part of this movie. I probably didn't understand the movie at all, with the way events unfolded in this movie. It lacked the cohesiveness of a Miyazaki movie - of which I have seen all of his movies released in the west.
I have mixed feelings about this movie - I wanted to like it, but it simply did not jell together for me. I guess I lost the storyline and any kind of purpose it wanted to impress me with...