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Overall, I'm a little disappointed. I love Miyazaki's work but this felt like a repetition of his many other movies and he left much to be desired.
It's definitely got the same animation spark that Miyazaki has in his movies, but plot wise I had a very hard time racking my brain around it. The movie felt like Miyazaki added many aspects to it that were impressionable and were intended to lead up to a larger point. The larger point however, was never made very clear. Metaphorically speaking, it was as though he kept creating folds in the story that detail the larger objective. But ... they just kept folding. The ending was grasping at straws and overall very forced.

However, there is a lot left unexplained. A tower falls out of the sky and becomes the main point of disappearances for family members as they venture to different planes in the afterlife? Malice is created through actions of humans (including Mahito himself) and therefore isn't something that is respected in this plane, but the very literal building blocks of the plane contain malice? The people Mahito encounter are younger versions from different timelines; he meets his mother, one of the grandmas, and his step-mother. But in the end, they all need to go back to their own timeline.
It's unique in the sense that Miyazaki gives his own spin on the afterlife. It has many twists and turns that can be manipulated. The idea that there is a familial inheritance to this afterlife that the right person can tend to with proper care very much touches on the same aspects that were portrayed in Ponyo.
Mahito himself acted upon his own desires and knew a surprising amount more than a child of his age would've been able to conclude.

I believe this is one of those movies that will not tower any of Miyazaki's others. It twists and turns, and comes to no real point. There is no character development and no real dialogue that speaks upon the main character's true feelings.
I feel as though this movie is a piece of art, but not in the sense that viewers can empathize with. It is merely Miyazaki's attempt of showing what he can do to present a beautiful story, with a lack of storytelling.