Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
1stDecame4Danime
The plot is an adaptation of the first book, The Borrowers by Mary Norton, in a 5 book series. If one wanted to see where the plot goes from where they leave at the end you could read the series to find out. Since the movie screenplay is by Miyazaki I would expect a lot of differences with the book being much more unfocused, boring, and lacking in thematic depth (the differences in the synopsis suggest as much).
The art/animation quality is top-notch and the movie has a decent amount of effort to give life to the world of the little people with plenty of charm and attention to detail with fun things like water physics at small scales and repurposing human items into their own scavenger culture and such. However, the mundane Earth setting does lack a certain charm in the absence of fantast…
Read at the sourceOhsnapitsDavid
Movie production is amazing, but its not enough to grant a passable reception when film also requires a good story + story telling. And yet, this movie exceeds at doing nothing special, even as an adaptation.
If you want a great fantasy story, look elsewhere. If you want an average story about fantasy, this is the plain film to watch. An 8 score is what this movie can receive as proof that if you take away the nice art, you are left with a boring story.
There were so many ways of making a fantasy story about small people interesting, but this isn't one of them. The magical appearance of a woman in tall grass gives off a "fairy world" vibe, but the film as a whole is only somewhat of a fantasy.
Nothing more boring than watching a plain 2 hour story that's carried slowly on a modern gr…
Read at the sourcenozomiEX
It's hard coming to terms with the gradual disillusionment with Studio Ghibli. Save for a handful of classics, once you look past some initially pretty visuals, you'll see the empty, wasted potential of a film. And unfortunately, this one is one of those duds.
The greatest fumble here is the narrative. It's an unfocused, shallow hackjob of cobbled together plots and plot seedlings that never develop or go anywhere, or if they do, amount to nothing. The film sows seeds near the beginning of numerous lines for the movie to follow. Sho's illness, his being pawned off on his aunt for convalescence while his mother goes to another country, with a mentioned-in-one-line divorce on top of this. The possibility of all these other Borrower families, their disappearance or perhaps even extinction, o…
Read at the sourceLaphi4052
I don't have any complaints about the art style, voice, or artwork, but I honestly just can't get over the plot. In what world is it okay to steal and call it borrowing. I couldn't bring myself to finish the movie.
I personally don't understand why this movie is rated so highly. I would have been more okay with the movie if they had chosen to use a different world or acknowledged what they were doing is stealing, but nope.
I read in a review on a different website that it wasn't immoral because the people needed it and what they were taking was so minor it wouldn't have even been noticed as missing. I beg to differ. First off, I don't define their situation as one of need. There are other ways of procuring their goods and the little people could also aid the home owners in small ways a…
Read at the sourcejal90
[This review was also published in my Anime Planet account]
Hiromasa Yonebayashi is an interesting case to follow. This literal nobody who just directed his first feature film in Studio Ghibli ended up being the closest the studio has ever been to an answer for its future. In Karigurashi no Arrietty there is a lot of Miyazaki... in fact, one could say that it is a Miyazaki movie in disguise, and wouldn't be far off seeing his work in its writing and supervision.
Coming from somebody who absolutely adores the work of Hayao Miyazaki, Yonebayashi's debut feature took me by surprise as something that could not only hold up to its clear predecessor, but also, surprisingly, a movie that demonstrates a level of understanding about how this style works that is absolutely stunning for a newbie.…
Read at the sourceMoonywanderer
Arrietty is a tiny person. When I say tiny, I mean only about 10cm tall! The tiny people live in the house of a sickly human boy named Sho, who has always heard about the little people of the house from his mother. Arrietty and her family are borrowers, tucked away in the house and ‘borrowing’ items that the humans are unlikely to notice are missing. After narrowly escaping being seen by Sho whilst outside, Arrietty is excited to start on her first borrowing herself, with her father, Pod. When an encounter with Sho leaves her family very concerned, Arrietty must decide whether the bridge into the human world is one which she wishes to cross.
So lets start with the characters. We have the suspicious house keeper, Haru, who is totally onto the family of borrowers. She’s quite a nuisance and…
Read at the sourceguigeek
This review is both in ENGLISH and FRENCH.
I took advantage of today's broadcasting on NRJ12 (French 12th channel) of Arriety to watch it.
Story : 7/10
A sympathetic cute story about a sick boy who discovers the existence of some tiny people living under the family home. The story is pretty simple, no need to be complicated to make a beautiful story by the way. But I found it lacks of developments, maybe because the movie is only 90 min long but you easily get into it. However, the scenario is pretty unique since it is not the standard hero who goes saving everybody in the freakin' world but helps a few people in bringing his modest contribution to them at his humble level. There also isn't the same everlasting scheme about a young boy/girl going on an adventure to find answers/relative…
Read at the sourceKexiu
My impressions on Arrietty
The level of detail in this incredible hand drawn animation is breath-taking, and can only be attributed to the studio that's worthy of its name. By now we are probably all familiar with the surreal magic Studio Ghibli casts on their art, the settings and environments are so vibrant and well... indescribable. But our high expectations of Ghibli's work does not dampen our amazement every time we begin one of their films, this time I was completely blown away by how much creativity was poured into the daily functions of the 'Borrowers', how and what they use to operate, what they call their humble abode, we see unparalleled amounts of resourcefulness.
Watching this movie was like being zapped with a shrink ray until you are nothing but a few inches tall, and the…
Read at the sourceMugenDorimu
I think this anime is kind of unique, with mini sized human live as theme, makes me very interested to watch it and leave a deep feeling of it. The shades of fantasy is so strong but not exaggerate.
Story: It a simple one, with fine pace, without any boring scene. Ending is almost perfect.
Art & Sound are so-so, I like the background art of it, I don't really have any comment except that.
Characters: the design was fine, either with their personality, seiyu voice are suited well.
Enjoyment: I think Karigurashi no Arrietty will be enjoyable by anyone, although they're not an anime fan. As I mentioned it before, it leave a deep feeling for me, so for me it feels like there's not enough if watch it just one time, makes me want to rewatch it again.
Read at the sourcegwern
Finally watched _Arrietty_. First, the good: the animation is beautiful, the backgrounds rival any Ghibli movie ever, the details are there and they are striking, ranging from increasing the volume of things like clock ticks to water acting realistically on the small scale (eg. the mother pours out 1 or 2 droplets of tea, not a stream of tea). The music by Corbele is fantastic, and I don't think Hisaishi would've done it better. The character design is nice (Arrietty is the cutest Ghibli protagonist since Princess Mononoke_), and as already said, the world is well-designed. The house is a character in its own right.
The bad? Well, there's starting to be an element of self-parody or plagiarism in Ghibli movies: as it opened, I thought 'ah, the road from _Spirited Away_, ah, this boy looks…
Read at the sourceAfroOtaku917
I saw the latest Studio Ghibli film, "The Secret World of Arrietty". I've been wanting to do a review on this since looking back.....I kinda over-exaggerated a bit. Saying that it's one of the studio's best, then looking back....I can see some flaws to the film.
The Story
A 14 year old boy named Shaun goes over to live with his great aunt. Where a tiny group of people called "Borrowers" live under the floors. Although, the name "Borrowers" does sound misleading because there technically STEALING. But it doesn't teach about theft. They just take things that humans won't miss. Like sugar, tissues, soap, and other stuff that they need for survival. But when a young girl Arrietty is seen by the boy, there chances for survival are on thin ice.
Now the story is where most of the films flaws c…
Read at the sourceSanders_Man772
First I would like to make known that this movie is a masterpiece. Its animation is so vivid and colorful that the first five minutes of watching you will be amazed at what you are seeing including the environment in a whole.
If you all have seen the borrowers when you were younger like I have this is falling the same aspect, little people living their own lives trying to stay away from people and animals and borrowing food from humans that they will not notice has gone missing.
The Story is outstanding. The difficulties the borrows have with the humans, the animals and the conflict that expands between the humans and the borrowers is very emotional. The story in itself will keep you seated and wanting to finish watching.
Now let me discuss to you the art which to me is award winning. The…
Read at the sourcelakshika
i loved this movie..i watch it in UK dub version and they did a brilliant job and true justice to the characters...4 pointers why you should watch this movie..
1-the plot is amazing filled with uncommon characters,who have their own
problems to handle and how each one see the world is totally different the
story gives us a important message TO NEVER GIVE UP ON LIFE AND TO HAVE
THE COURAGE TO FACE IT MATTER WHAT..these days people need to hear it.
2- art was so beautiful,natural and smooth very quick and swift tooo...just like how real people would react in the situation..the emotions in the characters were carried out perfectly,sometimes they spoke less and show how they feel more i loved it,gives a fake smile to comfort and cry alone....
3-sound was so sweet and trilling when the time co…
Read at the sourcektulu007
I've reviewed several Stiudio Ghibli films since I started doing these. Most of which have gotten positive reviews. The only exception has been Tales from Earthsea. Unfortunately, that's also the newest Studio Ghibli film I've reviewed. Or it was. Today I'll be looking at The Secret World of Arrietty and hoping that Tales from Earthsea isn't a sign of things to come.
If you've read The Borrowers you probably have a pretty good idea of the basic plot. A sick child moves to his aunt's large house way out in the country. He's heard stories of little people from his mother and he quickly spots one, an adventurous young girl named Arrietty. The two of them speak with each other and he decides to try to make their lives easier, not knowing that borrowers can't stay somewhere after they've been…
Read at the sourceReikanOngaku
"No friendship is too small." Here I start to wonder whether or not I could relate to that. All jokes aside, this is a kid's movie.The film’s genre is fantasy that stretches out to the Shonen and Seinen crowds. The story itself holds common qualities from all Ghibli films: adventurous, graceful, enchanting and simply lovable. The plot is very simple and holds the basic concepts from the original British novel: The Borrowers. The conflict is a pretty broad concept of keeping the very existence of the Borrowers a mystery so that they can actually live safe lives. The plot progresses pretty well and shows effortless mastery.
Here our characters are all equal and just as expressive—whether they are normal sized or the size of your fingers. Arrietty: the adventurous, kind, courageous and optim…
Read at the sourceClicheReviewer
This is my first ever studio Ghibli movie. For the longest time, tons upon tons of people have been raving about this studio's works, yet I haven't really bothered to look into any of them since they never captured my interest in terms of plot and stuff. Also I'm not going to see a movie just because a big name company is doing it. Finally my first experience with Ghibli was Arrietty.
Arrietty was an alright movie. It had very beautififul scenery, where some objects were painted so realisticly, it dumbstruck me. The animation and voice acting was some of the best I've seen for an English dub, with the exception of Sho/Shawn which sounded too deep and monotone. :P The music was soothing to the human eardrums as well.
The real problems that I had with the movie, was how underdeveloped ever…
Read at the sourceP3t3rP4n
This movie started very similar to Spirited Away by Studio Ghibli 2001. Driving in a car to somewhere introducing us to the 'main' character. AUDI in Spirited Away, Mercedes in Arrietty. With a similar opening theme 11 years later they must have found it effective. Hayao Miyazaki writer and Director of Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle(2004), and planning and Screenplay for The Secret World of Arrietty. The storyline is based on 'The Borrowers' by Mary Norton and the music, which incorporated many celtic themes especially enhanced by the harp, was by Cécile Corbel. The story could have been so much more thrilling. I enjoyed the character development and appreciated the situation of Arrietty and her family however, it took too long to grip my interest. I was expecting an adventure to occu…
Read at the sourcezozobra
Studio Ghibli has a massive reputation in the world of animation, deservedly sitting at the zenith alongside the equally excellent Pixar. Cars 2 might have been a lull in the otherwise excellent back catalogue; unfortunately it’s been a long time since I could happily call myself a fan of Ghibli. Since the Oscar-winning Spirited Away, the studio has been stuck in a state of ever diminishing returns with the frankly over-rated Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo and the low point in Tales of the Earthsea. Ghibli is back in 2011 with the Borrower Arrietty, the immediate question that strikes me as a fan is whether this is a return to form or is the rot continuing to eat away at their exemplary reputation?
Even before this film had seen the light of day it was victim to scoffs aplenty thanks to this…
Read at the sourceshangwen_ren
I loved the movie; it has been several months since I felt an urge to write down my emotions, after watching the movie
.
My analysis begins with the tear-drawing part of the movie. I wiped when Arrietty and Sho exchanging a forever farewell. When Arrietty grabbed Sho's finger cried, I couldn't help but follow her. From the opening narration, we knew that Sho only stayed at house for a week. So whatever romance happened during this course, it would not last longer than a week. Of course, having watched so many romantic movies, we know that directors can always somehow carve the love story deep and unforgettable. In Arrietty and Sho's case, their love is extremely sweet and innocent, but moreover, they are destined not to be together-unrequited love. Arrietty grew up in an isolated social e…
Read at the sourceKuro4735
Studio Ghibli is quite renowned for it’s rather large portfolio of acclaimed family movies, and you could definitely add Karigurashi no Arrietty to that list. Ghibli usually makes two types of movies, either fantasy movies that focus on themes that are rather critical of problems in society (Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke and Nausicca come to mind), whereas in more recent times we’ve seen more slice-of-life fantasy adventure movies. Arrietty fits more into the latter, with it’s setting being modern day society with a small little twist; there are tiny, tiny people living under the house, and they borrow from humans to survive. Tiny as in maybe 5-8 centimeters tall.
One of the charming aspects to this movie is, without a doubt, the amount of attention paid to the little details that makes th…
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