Review of NiNoKuni (2019)

Moving picture, 106 minutes

Momose Yoshiyuki (director).

Seen in 2020.

Lifeless moral-dualist fantasy adventure. The story has no integrity, even less so than Mary and the Witch’s Flower (2017). It shows no development since El-Hazard: The Magnificent World (1995). The only remarkable detail is that one of the main characters is physically disabled, apparently since birth. This fact has no impact on his ability to fight a vicious dog in the primary world, and no impact whatsoever in the secondary world, where he can walk without even thinking about it and is a great swordsman, making his experiences up to that point irrelevant. This seems even more disrespectful to wheelchair users than Spyri’s miracle in Heidi (1881).

moving picture Japanese production animation fiction