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It takes one action and one person to fill the missing puzzle in someone’s life. This is my takeaway from this movie.

My heart feels heavy after watching this movie. This weight in my heart, I am not sure how to feel, just that I am glad that I watched it. The heavy snows and stuffy weather kinds of symbolized the feelings of the ending of the movie. Yet, life moves on, and just like another day, things regained back to its original track. Winter will end, and spring will come.

As someone who like to draw and had drawn 4 panel comic strips back in ... the elementary/primary school, I couldn’t help but feel relatable to the main character, Fujino. Fujino secretly competes to beat Kyoumoto in drawing manga strip for the school’s newspaper before meeting each other. After learning that Kyoumoto is her fan, Fujino is happy that she was acknowledged by someone with great drawing skills and they grow to work as a team. The presence of Fujino has encouraged Kyoumoto to be more social while inspiring her to master her drawing skills. The entire story content isn't anything exciting and there aren't many ups and downs, yet it managed to captivate my attention as I find myself enjoying to watch how they grew closer and will they ever rekindle their friendship.

All in all, I love the ending. At first, I thought it would be the time machine concept, but it would be hard to be unpredictable. Then, I am glad it’s not those time reversing and undoing certain decisions kind of cliché. Though, it unfolds into an alternate universe with a little time machine concept sneaked in. I thought it is a brilliant ending. I am satisfied how I got to see the happy ending in the lens of the current ending. It must feel so nice to find someone who understands you while you understand them. It takes one action and one person to fill the missing puzzle in someone’s life. I thought it’s a heartwarming story as it portrays that everything clicks when you meet the someone that’s alike. It was weird all along until we meet another weirdo and became a team. It was a lonely path all along before I met you. Nobody understands why you’re working so hard on something; nobody gets it. But when someone gets it, values it, and understand what you do, the whole world starts to shine and everything just make sense. The rocky path is easier when you have a partner.

Jaw-droppingly good. Production and storytelling are extremely impressive, perhaps it is the only 3D Chinese animation that I feel comfortable to watch. Most of the Chinese 3D animations feel awkward to me still, even those highly rated ones. Yet, this particular one doesn't disappoint as every episode has movie grade quality. The music especially the OP is a chef kiss, there's no vocal but beats that are captivating and setting the mood well. It is a typical story of a powerful male protagonist's journey to "kill" gods with his awakened and growing abilities. Though I am not exactly fond with this kind of overpowered MC ... style of story, I would still highly recommend it for the splendid experience of the awe-inspiring production.

The story is based of a very extended novel with a whooping 2038 chapters! I was enchanted by the first two episodes of this anime and went ahead to read almost 200 chapters of the novel. With that, I realized there some differences in part of the story if compared to the novel, which I think the anime producers made the right refinements. Those modifications made the story complete and help to encapsulate the strong feelings better. The story has an unique and mysterious settings that slowly reveals the answers as the MC grows. The highlights of the story are well-animated, and there are times I felt chills watching those scenes. I didn't rate this any higher as the story and characters lack depth.

This anime is a hidden gem. I think anyone who appreciate well-produced animation should definitely give it a go. Beware that you might get hooked with 3D animation, but I have yet to find other 3D anime of this quality. Side note, I wouldn't recommend reading the novel, it's too long and became quite predictable.

The quality of this season 3 anime which is first aired in 2024 is rubbish if compared to the season 1 of 2017! I can't believe I am watching this kind of dreadful and unprofessional animation in the year of 2024 and that in a famous series. Disappointment, anger and sad are the feelings I got after watching the first few episodes of this airing series.

What you'll find in this anime:
1. All characters now have a different face. They undergone a factory reset, and the only thing that can remind the viewers of the characters are the consistent voice actors and outfit design. The ... worst part being, the 2024 version of character design lacks of details for the side supporting characters. The producers apparently think it is okay for those side characters to have a vague face feature, making most of them blurred out in the background, losing their uniqueness. S1 successfully painted the image that in this story, each and every characters have their own stories and uniqueness. In S1, we see that every character is given the spotlight though the storyline centered around Ye Xiu. However, we lost all these in S3, they blurred out the side characters and skipped few important events happened in the novel. The producers seemed to not understand and analyze the importance of those fast-forwarded and skipped events for the story.

2. Bad animation in general. As mentioned, my jar dropped to the floor when I saw the first episode and went to check my internet speed. Turned out that the animation has significantly low frames per second, low enough for average viewer to realize the difference. The fact that it was badly animated just make me wonder the reasons of this anime production. The character moves awkwardly, the fighting scenes are simplified, chibis are now heavily used even in those game competitions. It pained me to watch such terribly made animation of my favorite series. S1 has the smoothest and impressive characters' game movements and effects for those fighting scenes. For this S3, characters can't even walk smoothly!!! There are many viewers pointed out the laziness of the production team as well as the animators. There are important side characters playing in official competition without a mouse, they just moved their hand around, floating on the desk.

As a King's avatar fan who read the novel, listen to the radio drama, watched all the prior seasons and movies, I am saddened that S3 is ruined by the production teams. It wilted my excitement of waiting for 4 years since S2 finished airing. Such a huge let down.

This is a movie I have high expectation on, thrilled to watch how Hayao Miyazaki tells an interesting story. Yet, I wouldn't consider this anything interesting nor bright. When I was halfway into this 120 minutes movie, I was still wondering what it is trying to deliver and I was in the same wondering state until the credits started to roll out on the screen. I waited for extra clips and there was none. All that being said, it's a movie that not everyone would enjoy as it tries to deliver something more personal from the author.

"Letting go" is the most direct message ... I got from this movie without any further analyzation. The movie centered around the journey of letting go of the guilt for not saving the mother and letting go of the imagination world that he could be the master of. As someone who likes Studio Ghibli movies but knows little about Hayao Miyazaki, I wouldn't have realize how similar the story resembling Hayao Miyazaki's personal life. But, the movie certainly gives me the vibe that Miyazaki is saying his goodbye with a story of younger self (Mahito) meeting his current state of self (Granduncle/Ooji/master). While I am writing this review, I felt a strong sense of loneliness from the author as well as the warmth from him as he reached out his hands to invite me into his thoughts. The movie presents his life and his thoughts about himself in general.

Here's my understanding of the story:

The story begun with the passing of Mahito's mother. It went on as Mahito was still mourning for his mother's death while his father had already moved on and found someone to replace his mother. He felt guilty for not saving his mother, and then slowly he embarked to a journey to bring back his new mother (Natsuko) who is also his mother's younger sister from those talking creatures. The creatures lured him into a mysterious and suspicious tower whereby there are tales of people missing. Mahito's mother being one of the them, she had once went missing for a year when she was young near the tower. The tower is a place where dimensions are blurred; times, locations and living things. The world inside the tower was created by the master who is the granduncle of Mahito. There Mahito went into an adventure of creatures he never seen, made friends and found families. Himi is the younger form of his mother, she was from the time frame when she went missing for a year near the tower. Himi helped Mahito to find Natsuko, and they ended up meeting the master in the process. I believe the climax of the story started here, the part when the story is coming to an end.

I am convinced that both Himi and Natsuko were both lured in the same way as Mahito for the very same reason as why Mahito was lured into the tower. The reason being that the tower master is desperate to find someone to inherit the imperfect world he created due to his old age. All three sharing his bloodlines he tried to recruit, but none take the chance to succeed the "space" he created even if he tried his best to find the 13 pieces of grave stones that have no malice. "This world will crumble in a day if nobody inherits it", said the master. It is at this point, I realized that Miyazaki, the author himself, is the master who created the magical world and creatures with a pencil and paper, and he desired to find someone to continue his legacy. He fails to find successor many times, the world crumbled into pieces as the harmony is disrupted. All those adventures, creatures and "worlds" he created, is just a glimpse of frictional world for someone like Mahito. At the end of the day, all characters went back to their normal life, signaling that all of these happening in the tower, is nothing more than a short magical clip in their life.

In Mahito's view, he didn't choose to continue the frictional world and that his initial reason of rejection was that the building stones reek of malice. Perhaps, it simply means he prior the reality than the imaginational world. At the end, I felt Mahito finally accept and let go of Himi's death as Himi happily chose to go back to the reality where she knows how the future plays. "After missing for a year, she came back from the tower smiling ear to ear, as if only one day had passed. She couldn't remember anything from it." From the note Himi left for Mahito, we all know that she remembered everything and still chose the route, knowing where her ends meet.