Stop The Madness Of Good Votes For This Movie

Rating: 4/10 (24 December 2004)

If this had been a live action movie done with the style, acting, and gravitas of, say, "Schindler's List", it would deserve a place in the IMDb.com Top 10. And it could have been done that way with very few special effects. But it wasn't, and that's exactly what I find wrong with it. I feel that this was a horrible, horrible choice of material for an animated feature. Shouldn't an animated feature give us what can't be done in live action as movies like "Spirted Away", old Disney features, and anything by Pixar so incredibly do? As it was, I could not help but feel the strain as the movie makers tried to turn this into a movie that gets the viewer completely sucked into the emotional aspect of it all. Personally, I got more choked up watching "Spirited Away", and for that matter, "Finding Nemo"!
I understand why and how badly people want to like this movie, but for me it didn't work at all. And I find the elevated ratings for it ridiculous. There are much better anime flicks out there than this.