Mary and the Witch's Flower (Mary to Majo no Hana) is Studio Ponoc's first film as a company, and as such it's bound to have some flaws. However, I think the actual people behind Studio Ponoc's experience from Ghibli really helped to pull this together.

The Problems

Of course, no film is without problems, so let's get those out of the way. I felt like the voice acting was slightly boring. I have nothing against Ruby Barnhill, it's just that she doesn't have experience in cartoon voice-acting at all. Her performance came off as such, and it made some moments that were supposed to be dramatic, something irrelevant in the grand scheme. Of course, however, Kate Winslet and Jim Broadbent's performances were great. But, I feel like in addition to Mary's voice acting being a problem, I feel like the script wasn't translated entirely well. It felt like the choice of words a lot of characters used to describe things was just... odd. Now, I don't really watch much dub, I prefer sub but this film was only available dubbed. This might be a normal problem for dubbed films, but is a problem nonetheless. It also ties in with what I said earlier about dramatic moments. The characters would say something that's supposed to be sad or something, and the sentence would actually sound sad in Japanese, but in English, combined with the amateur child actress, it just doesn't work well.

The Strengths

Now onto what I actually like about this film. For a studio's very first film, this is outstanding. Not only that, they got Disney Japan on board as well. They really pulled it off in the end, and produced a great film. It's not too often that a first movie is actually pretty good. Another thing, the visuals are stunning. There were some shots where I said to myself "Wow. That actually looks really cool." The backgrounds, visual effects, and animation are all gorgeous. It's not the best I've seen by any means, but it definitely can't be looked past. I also loved the humor in this. While it's not a comedy in itself - it's not very joke-oriented - there was one specific joke that stood out to me. Near the beginning of the movie, Peter gives Mary the nickname "Red-headed monkey", which of course offends Mary, but is cute and funny in context. A lot later in the film, Peter finds himself running side-by-side to a bunch of animals with Mary. He turns to an actual red-furred monkey, thinking it's Mary. He just kind of guiltily pauses for a second, and Mary sarcastically says "I'm over here". I don't know, maybe it's not for everyone but I thought that subtle humor was hilarious, given it hinged entirely on context given earlier in the film. It was also completely out of nowhere given the lack of literally any jokes so far, yet it didn't distract from anything and was actually refreshing rather than something to be taken aback by.

Another thing that I think this film does right is the morals and the ideas behind it. This part might have a bit of a spoiler. The entire film, Mary has gotten her power through magic flowers. Throughout the film she learns just how dangerous it is to have so much power. When the headmistress and Dr. D try giving someone copious amounts of magic as an experiment, it completely backfires and Mary sees just how big of a mistake it is to take such power lightly. Near the end of the film, Peter sees an extra flower bud stuck in Mary's hair. Even if this part is kind of forced and I think they could've found a better way to introduce that last bud, what she did next I thought really wrapped the whole idea up in a nice little bow. She says that she's had enough power for one day, and casts the flower into the sky. Of course this isn't something revolutionary or necessarily clever. I'm just saying that the film accomplished what it set out to do while being subtle about it at the same time the whole way through.

Conclusion

I enjoyed this film. I really enjoyed it. I give it an 83 because it's halfway between 80 and 85. I think 85 is a bit generous and 80 is a bit harsh. Like I said, it's not a perfect film by any means. But it did accomplish nearly all that it wanted to, and I enjoyed it. The film was great, it was adorable. Not to mention the main character is super cute (but that's not counted on the score heheh). I would recommend this film as a start to people who don't actually watch anime. It's not quite a Ghibli film, but I feel like it fills the modern anime stereotypes more than the old-fashioned Ghibli films. Ghibli does not make bad films by any means, but if someone I knew wanted to get an ease into watching anime, I might recommend something like this to them. Although, Ghibli is still a very viable option.

Goodnight, everybody!