Children Who Chase Lost Voices

Makoto Shinkai's successor to 5 Centimeters Per Second, Children Who Chase Lost Voices is a story about a young girl and her teacher, both of whom long after those gone from their lives, and undertake a journey into an underworld known as Agartha, where legends say the dead can be brought back to life.

Thoughts

Makoto Shinkai. Since 5 cm/s, that name means more to me than any other name in Japanese media, even the famous (in the West) Hayao Miyazaki. So much, in fact, that I purchased a copy of the film outright out of nothing more than pure trust in the name.

Was it worth it? Yeah...well, more precisely: the movie has, first and foremost, solidified what Shinkai's name means to me. Absolutely gorgeous visuals, highly compelling characters layered over a deceptively simple plot, and so forth. Lost Voices delivers there for sure. However, it doesn't have the same lasting impact 5 cm/s does on me, and I suspect that this is because it feels slightly less...real (to be fair, the supernatural setting may contribute to some of that, unlike the 100% realistic 5 cm/s). And some of the potential is wasted, in a manner similar to Inception, whereas I feel that 5 cm/s used pretty much its full potential.

There's not really much more I can say without spoiling the movie, and I don't want to spoil it. In fact, I'm still highly recommending it, and the movie will still go down as one of my favorites. I only speak negatively of it because I personally feel that it does not quite match the masterpiece that is 5 cm/s.