Went for another Ghibli experience.
What did I get? Absolutely this.
What's the problem you may ask?
This was literally the whole Ghibli Experience.

The history was undoubtedly fascinating and intriging, but I think that there were too much of typical Ghibli "quirks" going on. It felt like the director couldn't focus on one particular motif to keep the movie in. I get that war drama of main character, similar to Hotaru no Haka, but as I said eariler, even the tragedy of this reality wasn't properly expressed, as in above.
Next we have some kind of peaceful interlude, in which the relationship with new "mother" is shown. Of course, typical for the Ghibli drama, there is a lot of onirism going on. I want to keep this review spoiler free, so I won't go into details of their link.
What comes next is Spirited away on LSD. There is similar things and motives used, but the eariness of events is very noticeable.
Of course this wouldn't be a proper Ghibli film without higher ideas and this is expressed in form of the Lord of the tower. I think that his storyline was very interesting and there were much things to unfold. Unfortunately you get very little of screen time dedicated for the history of why the aforementioned tower has appeared and what purpose it serves.
And why the parrots? I understand that it was meant to be a reference to Nazi Germany (maybe the design of flags has to do something with this impression, but the parrots are said to refer to fans and contributors of the creator, wanting more and more), or some kind of Monarchy but it was very earie to watch. Nevertheless very entertaining. Not to mention cute warawara, floating like balloons or pelicans forced to extinguish still unborn lives. Sounds creepy - right?
Well, it was and not only in this aspect (the Heron was also a very memorable character, but I think that his story and personality was explained quite good)
And yeah - for a moment when Kiriko is on screen, I felt like reading The Old Man and the Sea once again.
I liked the time loop aspect of Himi character and it is such a shame that we didn't get more of her talking to the main character throughout the film.
As I said previously - it feels like all of Ghibli films combined and compressed into one. End result?
A lot of different plots with too little time for them to properly develop.
Of course the main plots have come to an end, but a lot of things were left unexplained (even when the secondary threads could greatly benefit from this - like the rules and duties of Lord of the Tower).
In the end you get Ghibli experience nearly from all previous films, compressed into one with distinctive unhingment of events. Too much in too little time in my opinion.
Unfortunetaly I got strong feeling of unfulfillment at the end of the movie.
Please remember that this review is highly subjective and personal