Delightful Children's movie

Rating: 10/10 (12 January 2006)

What can I say ? It's a really endearing movie, and even though it's a children's movie, I found myself captivated. The story is about two children, who move to the village with their father. They come into contact with various lovable spirits/ghosts.
Before watching various Miyazaki movies, my view of Japanese animation was that it was mostly full of violent animated serials, with a smear of science fiction. Seen them one, seen them all. I know that most people love to watch these type of animations. But I've never really been a big fan of these. One exception being "Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within".
I watched this movie, because it was directed by Hayao Miyazaki. I had already seen "Sen to Chihiro No Kamikakushi" and " Neko No Ongaeshi" (thanks to these being rated in the top 250 on IMDb) and found it to be a wonderful movie. The same applies to this movie.
The animation is stunning, even though it was done in 1988. I guess that's because since the entire animation is hand drawn, it doesn't get much better than this.
The story is captivating, and keeps one wondering as to what will happen. I have a 2 year old niece, and when I watched the children in this movie, I was constantly thinking of how well the director has gotten into the skin of children. Their various facial expressions, cries and antics are uncanny. Many of the scenes are just magical, and I was really amazed at the creative imagination of the director and animators. Even the title song is very hummable.
After watching these movies, I have now realized that the best Japanese animation is not the type that is shown on "Cartoon Network".
A must-watch movie for all children, and adults too!