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Ghost Cat Anzu was a very fun watch, it's witty, stunning, calming, and emotionally charged. The animation is insanely fluent, and if you liked how the trailer looked, you won't be disappointment by the full feature. Although I did enjoy Ghost Cat Anzu, there is one glaring issue that knocked it down a few pegs for me, but that'll be for later. And before later spoilers, I would recommend this movie to anyone who wants a whimsical but emotionally complex fantasy SoL movie.

Starting with things that were great, the animation is stellar. I love the use of rotoscope here, it has certainly been done poorly ... in the past, but this studio has really taken their time in making sure it looks fluent and natural while still having the art at the forefront. The style calls back to older japanese cartoons, think Doraemon but more flowy. This was defintely the highlight of the movie.

The characters and dialogue are also a highlight. Karin is complex, and obviously takes after her deadbeat father in some important ways. Anzu is very fun and makes for some great comedic beats, but is still grounded and nothing feels to forced (besides maybe the farting lol). Dialogue is conversational and short, a style that fits the tone and style of Ghost Cat Anzu super well.

For the eh side of things, the first half of the movie is pretty boring. Not much momentum is built at all in this first half, it feels like a slice of life filler episode where we don't know any of the characters, but it still has its charm, so it wasn't a slog to get through or anything. The second half is where things begin to pick up, we see more charcater development, action, and adventure, which I wish there was some more of in the beginning.

OKAY, so the big problem I specifically had, and HUGE SPOILERS here, is that Karin's mom's fate seems... completely awful. After she escapes from the underworld and that very fun chase and fight scene happens, the main devil basically insinuates that the mother is going to be punished in hell. This is where my eyebrow raised. She's going to SUPER HELL?? Is that really necessary for the story or message?? Karin just wanted to see her mom again, and it was so touching seeing them reunited and shows her how she can deal with her grief. But... the mom has to suffer for it? Is she going to the horrible level of hell that Karin saw? Why did they have to include that ambiguous line? It put such a sour taste in my mouth that I was just hoping for the rest of the film they'd show her again, but they never did. For all we know, her mother is getting straight up tortured, which like, totally sucks.

Despite all that, the overall messaging about grief and finding family is very nice and done with tact, but like damn, what a sucky fate. You're in hell and then your daughter shows up and breaks you out so now you're in super hell. But I digress. this movie is very cute and if you're here then you probably watched it and thought it was cute too I hope. Okay bye.