Does it have an interesting plot? Not really

Can you remember at all what happened? Something to do with a cat

Was it amazing? Yes

Nothing happens and yet i regard it as my favourite Studio Ghibli film

This is something I probably would have loved if I had seen it when a teenager. As an adult I found it a little creepy.

Are 13/14 year olds really supposed to find their soulmate for life and define their career paths/goals just as they hit puberty? This struck me as highly unrealistic and deceptive. I remember reading romance novels as a teen thinking that stuff like this would happen and then feeling disappointed that I hadn’t found my soulmate by 17. This kind of romanticized brainwashing can be pretty harmful to young people. It sets up unrealistic expectations and societal (and internal) pressures to find a mate before most people are even mature enough or know themselves well enough. I did like that they focused on finding oneself, but once again, it seemed awfully young to know what you want to do with your life.

Had they just been 4 years (or even better 8 years older) I would have probably really liked the film. It was cute and having seen “the cat returns (a favor)” last year, it was good to see the movie that inspired that prequel. This follows Studio Ghibli’s usual characters of little girls and anthromorphic animals. Farily entertaining (if you just change jr. high references to HS). I was happy to see the rest of family portrayed as real people with real situations, a working mother pursuing a master while trying to raise kids, a younger sister trying to figure out what to do with her life postcollege and seeking financial and personal independence from the family.

There was one thing that confused me in the film: I liked the “Concrete Roads” version of John Denver’s “Country Roads” and enjoyed hearing it translated to Japanese – but I didn’t quite get the reference and why the song was repeated throughout the film. To me the song evokes a nostalgia for a simpler countryside existence or a desire to return home/to a past life. These kids lived in Tokyo (not the country), had never left home and had no past experiences to long for/return to. It seemed like someone just really liked the song and stuck it in several times.