- There are no major spoilers in this review, however there are some structural details of this film that I do discuss in general term without mentioning any plot specifics details, if you are fine with that, I recommend you read this before watching the film so you know what you are getting into.

So, I have finally gotten around to watching Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms, and honestly I’m really disappointed that I was not sadder by the end of this film. If I had to boil down my main complaint about this film, it is that it focuses more on the ideas it is portraying, then actually getting me invested in said ideas. Like I assume the main message of this film has to deal with the ideas of how fleeting life truly is, or maybe the different stages of motherhood and how they transform overtime, but the film doesn’t spend enough time with anyone of these individual stages for me to actually become invested enough to care about the ending.

- On top of this, many times there are time jumps in this film with the missing time not really getting addressed, with us the audience just needing to fill in the gaps through context clues in this new time, which honestly wouldn’t be a problem if it didn’t happen so often in the film, but because it happens at least six or seven times, I never have enough time in each period to become invested before we did yet another “unexpected” time skip. So, by the end I’m just completely confused about what is going on in this story, further disassociating any interest I once had in the main climax of this film. It is like the film wants to shove multiple seasons of an anime into a single film, which just causes the ending to feel hollow, with any emotional beats it tried to portray ultimately feeling, to me, undeserved. - Sure just like most anime movies nowadays with a theatrical budget the entire art direction for this film is great, the animation is stunning to watch, and the color palette along with the character designs they decided to go with for this film is very nice to see. There is also the score, which just like in many theatrical anime films it is very pleasing to the ears, with each orchestral piece really adding a nice depth to each scene. But I don't really think that a good selling point for this film, because most theatrical anime films have all of that, so what reason is there to watch this movie other than finding the plot enjoyable? You could say the characters and their whole dynamic with each other, but for the same reasons I've listed above, you don't really have any time to build a repour with these characters, and in the end you kind of feel like the film is trying to force you to care about a story it has not devoted the time to get you invested in. - With that all being said, I really want to give this film an 80/100 because I did like a lot of the other elements, but I know deep down it doesn’t deserve that because of all the flaws (not to mention I did not tear up AT ALL during this entire film), so, unfortunately, I’m going to give it a 75/100, if this ever gets an anime series adaptation I would probably enjoy that much more then this. It really does sadden me that I don't feel this film deserves a higher score, because I genuinely really did like some of the beginning notes in this film, but ultimately it does not develop in a satisfying way, which is why ultimately came to rating this film what I did. If you enjoyed the film much more than me, that is fantastic, I am happy for you if you could enjoy this cluster fuck of a movie, because unfortunately all of the questions it left me with stopped me from doing just that.