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I'm only writing this review since there's so few mixed or negative ones, if I had enjoyed the film I wouldn't have bothered since that would just be heaping praise on the huge pile of prior praise, but more negative viewpoints might be more important to showcase.

The film started out strongly by setting up an interesting post-apocalyptic world. But as the story progressed things just happened willy-nilly with zero to no explanation, and by the end the whole story and world just felt shallow and basic. At the start you might wonder: Wow, why is the world ruined like this? Why are there giant ... insects roaming about and why do they have a spreading eco-system that kills the world? Why does Nausicaä seem to be able to communicate with insects? What's all that stuff about a prophecy? The answers given were: WAR BAD. POLLUTION BAD. INSECTS CLEAN POLLUTION SOMEHOW. SHE JUST CAN SOMEHOW. LOL I DON'T KNOW, MAGIC I GUESS. Not satisfactory answers in the slightest, so at the end I just felt like I'd watched a two hour long children's fable or an overly convoluted and long Captain Planet-episode.

The positives are the good (not great) animation, the fact that the violence depicted in the film actually has realistic effect (not like in Porco Rosso where the guns don't seem to actually do anything and I don't even understand why people are afraid of them), and the music is quite pleasant as well. If the runtime had been ~90 minutes and if they had explained the stuff that happened a bit better then the movie would have been a 7 or 8, but as it stands I can't give it more than a 6, slightly above a passing grade.

"Battle of the bullshit powers"

I recently saw the first installment into this duology, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The animation quality and the 'style' of that film were both fantastic, which elevated it for me in spite of the lamest main character in the world (fully equipped with nonsensical bullshit powers that vary in strength depending on what the scene requires) and a very teenage-boy attitude that permeated the entire thing (which can be fun when it's not done to excess, and I think the first installment straddled the line quite well, if we disregard some very silly one-liners). However, this is a ... review regarding the second installment, so now that I've set the scene...

It is a much lesser film. It keeps all the bad things of the first installment, while decreasing the quality of what made the first film so memorable. The story is passable, and probably better than what we saw in the first installment, but other than that it's pretty much all downhill. One of the best features of the first film, the animation quality, has deteriorated. The art is still quite well done, but we now see a lot of repeated animation sequences, often with so few frames of animation that it is very noticeable. The powers of the main opponent seem to be designed mostly for ease of animation (slap a red bubble on him and a few squiggly lines while he stands still and it's pretty much good to go). The main characters powers are as silly as ever. He extends his staff to pole-vault out of skyscrapers, he pole-vaults with such excellence that he can easily catch up to speedboats, and so on. His attitude and outfit are both as absurd as they were in the first film, and his 'hack into any machine at any time' seems to have very strange specific requirements, because he only ever seems to be able to hack into and control machines when it would allow for a 'cool' scene, never to be able to easily breeze through and kill/evade his opponents at any time he would want to. He can hack into any computer at any time which allows him to control various monitor-screens, construction-equipment and even satellites, but a speedboat? No, would never work of course, a bad guy is using it. His powers are so extensive and absurd that he just has to either forget that he has them or the enemy needs to have elaborate coincidences work in their favor so that he can't use them, otherwise he'd just win every encounter always without a hitch (which pretty much happens anyway, but still). When the film brought out the technology called "inter-dimensional missiles" I knew that the writers were just making shit up without any regard to rhyme or reason. This isn't a movie that is silly enough for inter-dimensional missiles to exist.

Nope, I can't recommend this. It's just not good. It's not a complete waste of time to watch if you are inclined to do so, but the first film gives you everything this one does but much, much better.

I knew beforehand that the general sentiment regarding this anime was luke-warm at best, but I needed an anime to watch that suited both me and my wifes tastes (so hardcore action animes were out of the question), and this one seemed like a good fit.

It started out pretty well. Since it's a Ghibli-film it's obviously very well drawn and animated, and it set up a pretty interesting set of mysteries and worldbuilding early on. I liked the general set-up of a wandering wizard taking a boy with a strange and tragic past along for an interesting adventure, and the film kept this up ... for the first 30 or so minutes. The city they arrive in was vibrant and felt engaging, but after that they arrived at a farm and the story just stopped for a good while, and when it picked up again it never really delivered on what was promised at the start.

(There's very mild spoilers ahead, nothing that warrants a tag, but still, I will vaguely mention some story beats and characters in the film)

The world suddenly started to feel very, very small. There's like ten or so acting characters in the entire film, not counting background extras (who all pretty much disappear after they leave the city at the start anyway). The evil wizard who's the main antagonist of the movie has a vast and powerful army of... three guys (who are completely incompetent). The leader of these three evil henchmen feels like he walked straight out of Porco Rosso, which doesn't fit the tone of the film at all (except for when he's threatening to rape children, like he does at the introduction of his character). There's also wild swings in the story that come out of literally nowhere and just massively change where things are headed. I think these were meant to be epic "woah!"-moments, but they just felt hollow since there was zero setup for them. The story overall just feels trite and empty, there's no weight to it at all.

Overall, a very "meh" film. Beautifully animated and drawn, but I feel nothing at all for the characters and the story. Can't really recommend it I'm afraid, but I don't hate it either. I'm sure some people will enjoy it more than me though, so I can't really say "this is crap" and recommend that people don't watch it either.

I started watching this on a whim after a hard days work and I was instantly hooked, and now after I've finished it two days later I am both blown away AND slightly disappointed. I am a fan of cyberpunk in general and I find the lore of the original role playing game quite interesting (though I've neither played it nor the recent video-game), so I enjoyed seeing the things I've read about "come to life", such as Arasaka, Max-tac, etc.

The story starts of incredibly strong, the first four episodes are amongst the top moments of anime I've ever experienced. Sadly the rest of ... the story can not quite hold on to what the first part promises, the story quickly devolves into endless action sequences (which aren't even that well animated), but the first four episodes plus the moments of quiet emotional poignancy really stuck with me. The ending moment of the story was perfectly executed and hit me straight in the feels, if they had botched that then my overall score would have been an 8, or possibly even a 7, but as it stands I have to give it a 9.

"Something something fascism"

I can't help but notice that a lot of people who love this anime tend to quote a certain line about fascism that's uttered in it. I get the strange feeling that some people conflate current real world events with historical events, and use media aimed at children to re-confirm their beliefs. That's cringe.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I was disappointed by this movie. Studio Ghibli-films are nearly always held in a very high regard by most people, but every time I put one on it's like I've just spun the chamber of a revolver in a ... Russian roulette-game, there's a solid chance that the movie is going to be very good, even a masterpiece, but there's also the risk that it's going to be a beautifully drawn dud that just leaves me bored at the end. Sadly, Porco Rosso comes much closer to the latter outcome than the former.

Maybe I am just the wrong age group, I never saw this anime as a child, and it does seem aimed at children in some ways. Nevertheless, when watching it as an adult I can appreciate the beautiful art and animation, but the story is meandering and doesn't really go anywhere. There's violence in it and allusions to death, but there's not much consequence to the violence we see happen, which just feels strange to me (are we in a dangerous situation, or are we not?). Everybody seems to love the main character, but I have no clue as to why, he's not especially charismatic. I guess he's heroic and helps people, but is that enough for every woman in the movie to fall for him? I don't know, just seemed a bit strange and un-earned.

All in all, 6/10, perfectly fine to put on if you are bored and want to watch something pretty, but it's not exactly a Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke.