NiNoKuni (2019) User Reviews

Decent Movie

[spraydose · 7/10 · 16 January 2020]

This is a decent anime movie for young and old. Based on some ideas of the 2 video Games "Nino Kuni". Although with some tweaks it could have a lower age rating and could have been enjoyed by even younger audiance aswell. But there is some war and blood so the 12 rating is understandable.

Story and Characters As I didn't play the 2 Video Games I can't tell if it's something from the games. The Story feels standalone but based on some ideas from the Nino Kuni Video Games. Love, Magic, Fantasy; although that most things aren't really explained it feels structurated like a game. Bit by bit you learn more about the world after the characters did something. But other then in a game you can't question more you are stuck by the "main story" which somewhat annoyed me from time to time. You get confronted with many questions about things you want to explore but can't as it's a movie and you have to follow with the story. The given plot twists are well done and understandable. Some you can forsee a little but nothing bad spoilers by the movie itself. The happy end of the movie ist enjoyable and doesn't leave one wondering why. It's a good end without a cliffhanger or anything.

Animation Effects, Characters, Backgrounds and all is pretty good. An up to date look which is fitting with the video games.

Music The music pieces are mostly matching scenes but I'm missing Ghibli feeling here (Joe Hisaishi) it is not the best of the best and I after watching it once can't really remember any song of the movie.

Competent, but Sometimes Mediocre

[Jamejarrs · 6/10 · 20 January 2020]

The characters are probably the most consistent part of the movie. They seem well developed and I started to care for them a bit by the end. The other writing really starts to fall apart, haphazardly throwing items and historical events at you in the third act then acting like you've been given enough context to care about them.

Ni no Kuni works very hard to recreate the Studio Ghibli aesthetic - bringing on some Ghibli staff and composer Joe Hisaishi - but the animation budget here is clearly not enough to hold the illusion for the movie's runtime. As it goes on, it starts to feel more like a mid-budget TV anime with flat shots and static animation.

Overall, it's an okay movie with not enough time or money to flesh out all of its ideas. There are worse ways to spend two hours.

Better as a game

[Luvstagrind · 6/10 · 19 January 2020]

This was an enjoyable film but I feel there was too much important info that is missing for the story. The movie tells of a city called Beladon, where many important events took place, but it never goes into detail about why these events took place. If this were a game, the events would have been given greater attention. The studio had to cram as much as they could into a nearly 2 hour film but it left too many unanswered questions.

A good movie to pass time

[WeAreLive · 7/10 · 6 May 2020]

High schooler Yuu and his friend Haru get involved in a case involving his childhood friend Kotona, which forces them to go back and forth between another world that is different but is somewhat similar to their world, Ni no Kuni. The real world and Ni no Kuni, when Kotona's life is in danger, what's the ultimate choice the three of them have to make in Ni no Kuni?

I have no exactly played any of the games so I have zero clue what this movie was about outside of 3 kids going to a different world. After a hooded figure comes to the real world. So the whole thing was new to me.

I found this movie overall pretty decent.

Okay-enough time waster

[CrazyEeveeLady · 6/10 · 15 November 2020]

Watched this on Netflix earlier and overall it's just kinda okay. Very very ... okay. It is visually pretty and well done with bright colors and fluid animation overall. However it's plot sags in a bunch of places and feels rushed. Characters often come up with conclusions out of nowhere and there are moments where the characters exposit important information out of their ass that was never established anywhere in the plot. Also of note, I watched the English dub. And it is pretty subpar tbh. I'd put this on for your older kids as there is a bit of violence and some suggestive content (impalement, pole dancing with no nudity) but I think anyone over 14 might be left unsatisfied.

A mediocre anime with no actual connection to the Ghibli animations you love

[siderite · 6/10 · 18 October 2020]

The guy who directed and designed the characters once worked as an animator for Ghibli and Netflix used this in the description of the anime to get me to see it. But the story was ridiculous, the animation was at most mediocre and at worst bad 3D CGI and in the end I got to know that it is all based on a video game. The entire thing is a disjointed mess that tries to connect magical realms with emotional symbolism and therefore messed both up. And the acting was abysmal most of the time, too.

Bottom line: no actual connection to Ghibli films other than a random guy who worked in both places. I would call this sub mediocre, but because of the false advertising I will go as far as call it bad.

ni no kuni

[marmar-69780 · 6/10 · 17 January 2020]

Ni no kuni isnt the best japanese animated film out there but for me it surved its welcome,film give us beautiful style of animation which in every shot looks clean and pretty enough to absorb it,story in a film will interest children of all ags including younger and older ones and it will also give them some valauble lessons for real life,however some parts of story were to messy to work and parts were characters travel between real life and stories were not so good connected to each other,and they become lost in some moments,ni no kuni is simply a film that will entertein children when you are doing something in house and cause of that they could learn some good life changing advices and messages

Has the potential, but feels rushed

[peistola · 3/10 · 22 January 2020]

This movie follows in the footsteps of the video games, has an equal potential to tell a great, sometimes complicated story. It straight up throws away so many scenes that could've been made to both improve the bond between the characters and to strengthen the plot. Instead, they seem to take a shortcut on explaining or showing things by inserting a really lazy written dialogue - usually a size of a sentence at max, to simply let the character notify the others why she arrived late.

It feels like there would've been enough story to make a two and a half hour movie, but everything that wasn't strictly related to the main plot was just cut off entirely. I did not get to bond with any of the characters in this movie, and the ending would've actually been an amazing twist if they'd shown a bit more passion and time to introduce even the two main characters to the audience.

Story aside, audio was great and visuals were okay. Only reason why I just have to rate the visuals down from what could've been great, is the fact that even that feels so rushed. Animation part is gorgeous and has very notable touch of Studio Ghibli - yet doesn't really hit the same level of detail - especially in motion.

What gives the visuals a huge negative hit are the CGI that is used in the majority of bigger fighting scenes. It is also used as an effect at some points, but I did not find it that disturbing - although I would've preferred those effects to be animated instead. During fighting scenes, you can see how the movement and visual part of the characters stands out as being notably different to those that are animated on the foreground. It's kind of giving this movie a tiny hint of probably unintended humor, as looking at the two CGI characters fighting on the background with the world's laziest and most repetitive movement patterns around really made me laugh. I wouldn't have minded the lazy moves if it would've been animated like the rest of the movie. It would've fit in - as for the CGI rendered characters stand out way too much and kind of force you to pay attention. Needless to say, the CGI parts feel very, very lazy and rushed.

Budget probably wasn't where the studio hoped it to be, but because of that I really hate to see another movie based on a video game fail. I'm a guy who watches even mediocre movies repeatedly over the years - this I would not watch again, not even to show it to someone else.

Nostalgic

[mackenzierussell-24947 · 6/10 · 27 February 2020]

The movie is very nostalgic of the game and is graet for fans of both games. If you are going for just the movie then you will find it boring to that if not a person who has played the games.

A lot of plot to cover and not enough time to sink in

[saxmanjim · 4/10 · 28 January 2020]

Let's be real. Writing a movie is HARD. When you only have about an hour and a half to fit in an entire plot and character development, quite a few details get lost or sacrificed and the final product feels more like a Cliff notes version of the original idea.

Ni No Kuni is a beautifully animated film with several feel good moments in it. You get a sense of the studio Ghibli influences here and the idea that, if given another hour, the movie would have been far better than it ended up as. The film is run amok by plot holes character development that doesn't ever really set itself up particularly well or get much pay off. The story itself is a standalone feature that shares the name of the games more than anything (similar to how Final Fantasy is a series but none of the games are actually connected.)

In the story, the more quiet, overshadowed paraplegic main character Yu and his best friend, the cool, boisterous and athletic Haru are both in love with their mutual friend Kotona whom Haru is dating, leaving Yu feeling jealous in more ways than one. For seemingly no other reason than to move the plot along, Kotona is chased down and stabbed by a supernatural masked man, This sets into motion a series of events that cause Yu and Haru to be magically teleported to Ni No Kuni (Another World) where they discover that the princess of the kingdom, Astrid, looks exactly like Kotona and is also dying. It's never really explained well, but Ni No Kuni is essentially a mirror world of ours where everyone in the real world has a counterpart that they are inherently linked to. There is some brief mention of "the rules" of that link but you're honestly left wondering if it's true or not as random and very specific tidbits get dropped about the connection between the two worlds but no one ever explicitly confirms anything as it's mostly a legend. Also, Yu can walk in Ni No Kuni and both he and Haru are apparently really amazing swordsman.

As the story progresses and Yu manages to save the princess' life, they're set up by the bad guy of the story who easily manages to convince the King that they're assassins sent by a dark group called the Black Banners. Yu conveniently theorizes that they can jump between worlds by putting their lives in danger and learn how to cross between the two. As it turns out, saving Princess Astrid causes Kotona to develop of malignant tumor that will kill her in a few months. This causes Haru to go rogue and he plans to jump back to Ni No Kuni and kill Astrid in order to save Kotona, again all based on theories with no solid evidence that's ever really confirmed. Haru joins up with Black Banner and attacks the kingdom. What could have been a perfect chance for Yu to come to terms with his jealousy of Haru and confront his friend about it ends up mostly a lackluster swordfight between the friends where they end up back in the real world as they're just about to stab one another. Yu pleads with Haru to stop the attack, but Haru is resolved to kill Astrid no matter what. In a bizarre twist, the masked man from the beginning of the film attacks Yu's sister who's counterpart in Ni No Kuni was about to be killed by enemy soldiers. Yu and Haru arrive in time to stop him and he turns into a giant spider and gives chase. No explanation as to who or what the masked man was, but he ultimately fails and the two wind up back in Ni No Kuni having figured out who the mastermind of the attack is.

Turns out it was the court magician who is also secretly the leader of Black Banner, but ALSO secretly the king's older brother who was sold to a rival kingdom when he was a child and then that kingdom was utterly destroyed by his father years later AFTER the crown prince had married and had a family. The prince was brought back to life through alchemy by combining the bodies of demons. Who brought the prince back and why? We'll never know. I felt extremely sympathetic toward him, but I didn't buy into him saying that he wasn't driven by revenge. The bad guy has been wanting to steal the princesses magic power to add to his own and essentially become a god in order to create a new kingdom. Yu is mortally wounded trying to save Astrid and is visited by an old man he met in the hospital as a child who talked about Ni No Kuni a lot. The old man I guess is the caretaker of a legendary sword called the Mornstar and he hands it to Yu as the new successor. Yu hypnotizes a giant bird and they have a fight in the sky and Haru ends up grabbing the sword and shoving it into the bad guy's skull, killing him. A portal opens and Astrid tells them that they have to go because it's fatal for people not of Ni No Kuni to stay there for long. How the hell did she know this? Where are these rules written down?? Part way through the portal Yu lets go and decides to go back to Ni No Kuni. Haru wakes up in the hospital having been in a coma for a month. Kotona had a successful surgery and the tumor was removed but the memories of Yu begin to fade away from everyone but Haru who realizes that Yu was actually his Ni No Kuni counterpart. It was explained in passing that Haru met Yu the day he was nearly killed by a junkyard dog and that Yu said he was in a plane crash as a baby and was the only survivor. Haru "theorizes" that Yu ended up in his world to save him because, "that's just the kind of person he is", and that it made sense that he was also in love with Kotona even though HE NEVER TOLD HARU HE WAS!! We end on a nice ending scene of Yu and Astrid holding hands.

Like I said, writing a movie is hard when you only have so much time to fit it all in. But Ni No Kuni, despite how charming it looks, fails to deliver a satisfying story that is consistent, compelling, or logical. The characters are rather static and I felt like they started at point A and ended at point A and a half. Fine to watch if you're a fan of Ghibli style movies, but I'd skip it if you're more a fan of movies with satisfying plots and characters that don't leave out GIANT chunks of explanation. Had this movie been closer to two and a half hours, it might have been able to address those glaring issues.

Fun

[jwwalrath-227-85487 · 8/10 · 18 February 2020]

The anime movie Ni no Kuni, now out on Netflix, is based on the video games of the same name. It isn't based on the story of the first one but takes place within the games' chronology. In it, two high school friends find themselves transported from our world into the magical world of Ni no Kuni.

Admittedly, this is kind of a basic fantasy story structure in sort of a basic fantasy land, but it is a well handled film. Everything about this is generally fun. I rather liked the mechanics of the connections between our world and Ni no Kuni. The dynamic between and motivations behind the two leads are strong. I particularly liked Yuu, the wheelchair-bound one who is brave, intelligent, and cool headed.

If you're familiar, the first Ni no Kuni game included animation from Studio Ghibli. In fact, the director Yoshiyuki Momose was animator for the studio. Now, this doesn't have quite the level of detail of Ghibli or the games, but it still all looks pretty nice.

Be forewarned that there is a moment with an adult character talking about a seventeen year-old's attractiveness that gets uncomfortable. It is over and done with very quickly.

Overall, I'm glad I saw this on a whim. It's a nice little time waster and a bit of a feel good film.

Visually Pleasing

[idaratihwidiastutib · 6/10 · 15 July 2020]

This movie has a lot of potentials to become a good anime movie with the same level as StudioGhibli movie. Too many plot holes will make viewers not understand the story and it will confusing. This movie doesn't send clear messages. Until the end of the movie, it's not clear how Yuu ends up in the real world and how he is there. Also, the background story of Yuu's character is not clear, it will be nice if there is part of the movie explain that. The plot is too fast to understand. Besides that, this movie still enjoyable to watch, it's visually pleasing and I really love it. The animation have the same level as StudioGhibli but not the storyline. I wish they will make part 2 for this movie.

I was so looking forward to this movie

[sismagilova · 5/10 · 17 January 2020]

I love the games, I love studio ghibli art, but this movie was pretty boring.. the very ending was interesting, but not enough to be worth the watch. It fell flat unfortunately..

Okay Movie, Could have been Better

[saadkhan-61833 · 6/10 · 21 June 2021]

I was not aware of the video game and watched without any background knowledge. Visually the movie is great and gives the feel of Ghibli Studio. The plot was also interesting in the first half but then movie went somewhere else and the war scenes/drama was just Ok.

Just keep it as a game

[Luvstagrind · 6/10 · 19 January 2020]

The movie was alright, it was enjoyable but it raises questions that it never answers.

About halfway through the movie we hear about Beladon, a city that was attacked by a past ruler of Evermore. It is NEVER explained why the king attacked it, just that it was for Evermore's protection.

Also the king had a son he handed to Beladon and, AGAIN, it isn't really given any depth of explanation as to WHY he was given to Beladon. It was just used as a way to give the villain of the movie a backstory and it is never explored beyond that.

If this WERE a game, it would have gone into more depth and character for everyone involved with the story but this was almost a 2 hour movie and they crammed it with so much crap it barely built up a decent story.

What I DID like was when the main protagonist in the end decides to stay with the princess in the other world which seems great since in the other world he is in a wheel chair, his crush is going out with his best friend, and would have to go to high school. I would want to stay in the fantasy world too.

A decently entertaining, underdeveloped film

[nendou69 · 6/10 · 27 February 2020]

I played the first game and was wowed by its animation and art. When it came to the movie, I had no idea what I was getting into. Upon finishing it, I am somewhat unsatisfied, yet I hold on ill will toward the film.

In my opinion, a 100 minute movie was the wrong format for the story they attempted to tell. There were some really good ideas that weren't fleshed out enough. The final twist should've hit a lot stronger, yet for some reason it didn't. Even though 100 minutes was not enough time to fully develop all their ideas, it still could've worked if they scaled back the amount of themes they wanted to portray.

If you like anime or the Ni no Kuni games, give it a watch. It won't be something you fiercely defend and recommend to your friends, but it's good enough entertainment to get you through some downtime. The movie is very nice to look at, I'll give it that.

Could have been great.

[thejman1 · 4/10 · 29 March 2020]

It starts out decent, when they went to the other world I thought this is gonna be good! First thing that started to annoy was how many times they had to say kotona, I grt it that's the name of the girl you're both in love with. Then our hero goes with the princess and she somehow has to do a bikini dance in water to fight off a virus. To top it off our male hero jumps into the water fully clothed, why?

And now to prove that you are not part of the bad guys, we let you gaurd our most valuable asset the princess! What kind of reasoning is that.

Then the 10 minute long reveal with so much backstory it hurts, I turned it off here. Too bad, could have been great

Less Than Mediocre Story With Nice Animation

[vexed_writer · 3/10 · 31 October 2022]

Another halfhearted attempt to capitalize on the isekai trope, Ni no Kuni tries to cram a story that needed at least a twelve episode series into an hour and forty minutes.

As a result of the short run time and unskilled execution, characters often benefit from deus ex and behave illogically in order to move the plot along and fabricate conflict quickly. Why not call an ambulance for your friend who has a knife in her stomach? Because then the characters wouldn't carry her into the street, thus putting them in a position to nearly get run over by the stereotypical "send you to another world" truck fans of this genre will be well acquainted with. Why assume that killing a person in one world will save their counterpart in another when literally every example of this dynamic suggests the opposite? Because the story needed more conflict. Why not simply bring up the point to your friend that everyone who has died in the fantasy world has died in real life? Because that would resolve the conflict without a flashy dramatic sword fight. Things happen because the plot needs them to happen and happen quickly, and not because they make sense.

Characters are cliche and will not surprise you in any way. Innocent princes, kind but overly trusting king, goody-goody hero and angry shouting hero, shady advisor who (of course) turns out to be the bad guy - and no I'm not counting this as a spoiler as you'd this would have to be the first movie you have ever watched not to see it coming. I will, however, label this review as a spoiler in case this is, in fact, the first movie you have ever seen.

The movie isn't hard to look at. It's Ghibli-esque, and it looks nice, though that does set expectations that the movie does not deliver on.

Essentially, a worn out premise unskillfully executed, riddled with tired tropes and obvious cliches; a story that would have struggled to be interesting even with a proper series to flesh it out crammed into less than two hours; and hack writing that wasn't up to the task of making it work.

An Enjoyable Anime Film

[MovieBuff11732 · 8/10 · 17 January 2020]

Ni No Kuni is about these two boys that are really good friends and there friend gets murdered. The two friends gets thrown into a parallel universe and they save a princess and after that many crazy things happened.

Ni No Kuni was a solid film. There was some problems with the film but over all I thought it was good and enjoyed most of the film. The things I didn't like was the end because I thought it just took a turn that didn't really seem likely to happen. I just wasn't a fan of it. They were also just really excepting about all of these crazy things happening. I got from that was they just wanted to shave some time off. I just thought that was a little lazy. Besides that, I thought it was solid. I thought the characters were good. They were fun to be with and I never really found myself getting annoyed at there wording or actions. In fact, when I was watching the film I was thinking they have said some wise words. That is good they didn't have annoying characters. I enjoyed the story besides the end like I said. I thought the whole word was amazing. It fascinated me. I have never played the games so I wasn't really familiar with the world.

Overall, Ni No Kuni was a good film I would recommend for people who like more outgoing films.

Honestly just bad

[capsparks · 3/10 · 27 January 2020]

The whole movie was just meh. Bad dialogues, no character motivation, they just "knew what to do". Bad fights, stupid conflicts... and the end was filled with dumb plot twist after dumb plot twist. If I hadn't been watching it with a friend, I would have turned off the movie way earlier. I'm glad I didn't, because knowing that the end is as dumb as "IM ACTUALLY THIS GUY, ALSO YOUR BROTHER, WHO GOT REVIVED, AND THE OLD MAN HAS THE WEIRD SWORD WE MENTIONED TWO MINUTES AGO". Some of the voice acting is also meh, and the animation is sub par.

Husk filled with void, cashgrab

[jimwhit · 1/10 · 24 January 2020]

4 minutes of story dragged out for 2 hours. Abhorrent jokes about 17-year old girls being valid for plucking, then boys screaming about who has the bigger sword - then nothing of the Ni no Kuni world, no exploration of the realm, no adventure, no substance. Just formula jammering, formula villain, formula formula, then the end. Avoid at all cost if you are a fan of Ni no Kuni. Avoid at all cost if you aren't.

Very disappointed

[claudineharper · 4/10 · 17 January 2020]

I watched about 30 mins and turned off because the characters reactions to what was going on did not fit at all. We are thrown into their normal world and fantasy world but with no real relationship for us with it. I was made to care too early on about the boy who has a crush on the girl his friend is dating... And then she gets murdered and when they travel to this other world their reactions don't fit to what is happening or what just happened to them.

Plus it has a weird mix of animation and real footage.

I love most animé but this want good enough.

Perfect for fans of the games

[randomgames-87835 · 9/10 · 19 January 2020]

If you enjoyed the games, you'll likely enjoy this. There are tons of Easter eggs and references plus some of the soundtrack from the games makes another appearance.

Soap Opera ~ Stolen Style ~ Bad Animation

[lcholakoff · 2/10 · 18 January 2020]

Started out strong (the first 10 seconds) then quickly turned sour. Plot is thin, filled with melodramatic events. For those who don't know, melodrama is the presence of obstacles for the sake of drama and not for character growth.

Characters, scenes and drawing style are a copy of existing Ghibli and other animations. Zero innovation or novelty present.

Animation is choppy. Feels like a third of the frames are missing. Mismatch between classic style looking people/environment and cheap CGI looking vehicles/monsters.

~ CONCLUSION ~ Do not waste your time. Unless you have played the game. I don't know how would I feel about it if I had played the game. Maybe that would explain all my complains and it is actually a masterpiece, who knows...

Actually Disappointed

[adityarahman-99767 · 3/10 · 18 January 2020]

First its good, in the middle its getting bad, and in ending its really bad.