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(spoiler free)

i live in japan and speak japanese, so i got the chance to watch this joint with my mom in theaters (she fell asleep for half of it since she doesn't speak japanese and there were no subtitles LOL)

to keep it brief: the flick's good. very watchable. production and vibes were beyond on point as per standard ghibli quality, particularly miyazaki's shit. script was serviceable enough to not actively detract from the stellar atmosphere and ultimately satisfying viewing experience.

something felt off, though. it was like an incredibly advanced ai was trained on every previous miyazaki movie and then fed a new script to ... generate a new miyazaki thing automatically. every scene, every character, damn near every shot felt like echoes of his past work with a little less gusto. i feel like i could point to an analog in some previous work of his for literally every aspect of this thing. i dunno if it's because he's getting older or because he made this thing with his grandson in mind as the future audience, but it's just a little lacking in soul. behind the gorgeous soundtrack, animation, and vibes, it felt like there just wasn't all that much meat here.

save for a couple highlights, i don't think any of the characters really grabbed me or hit home in any significant way. they all kinda just feel like shadows of characters he's already written before. big hugs, tearful reunions, booming laughs, none of them felt right or natural. just made me want to watch ponyo or the wind rises again.

maybe you'll feel differently. my sincere hope is that i'm somehow just jaded or wasn't paying close enough attention, but i suspect this one was a little phoned in. it feels massively disrespectful to say that considering miyazaki's been working on this for the better part of a decade, but i can't shake that feeling that this one just doesn't stand up to scrutiny like most of his best stuff.

should you watch it? yes. especially if you're a ghibli fan. i hope you love it, really. maybe i'm just broken! 💯🤙

It's like, a mediocre prettyboy thing; the characters are all fine, none of them are TOO generic and the gimmick of each of them being super attractive in theory but not in practice because of their weird personalities is mildly interesting I guess. That being said, it's not particularly funny, or dramatic, or anything, it's just like a 50-minute OVA type thing where some rich girl has these weirdo guys enter a "hot n' talented hunk" competition where they demonstrate their cooking ability, or their ability to jump through hoops and balance a soccer ball on their nose like the dogs on Animal Planet. There's ... like, a dramatic bit between the butler guy and the rich girl toward the end, but it's just kind of silly and contrived.

Actually, I forgot, the bit where she explains how she's currently in debt because she fell for an e-mail scam was kinda funny. That's the only laugh I remember it getting outta me, though.

Point being, I can't imagine finding this movie to be super great unless you are 1) a teen girl and 2) have seen less than like 50 anime in your life.

Still, it ain't bad. It was fine. Whatever.

Re:Monster is, without a shadow of a doubt, the single purest distillation of escapist power fantasy media I've ever encountered. This shit is literally just "guy shows up to fantasy world that's good at everything and never loses ever, gets every ridiculously overpowered ability in the universe and fucks every hot babe that crosses his line of sight".

And for that, it's a pretty good time.

I'd compare the experience of reading this thing to the experience of leveling up/getting new gear/progressing in a bog standard RPG. There are no stakes, the characters all exist in service of the protagonist, and the prose is beyond beige. Almost ... every chapter SOLELY consists of the main guy describing exactly how he's constantly demolishing every enemy he comes across + fucking every babe he comes across (they like it and he has a big dick btw) + explaining every new ability he gains + explaining every "strategic" move he makes in explicit detail.

Explicit, /painstaking/ detail. Pages upon pages of text just explaining what new powers and titles he's acquired.

In a way, this extremely plain and straightforward progression is sort of satisfying, dullness in its storytelling notwithstanding.

Nothing suspenseful happens. 50 chapters in and the overarching narrative beyond his (and his clan's) personal progression is all but nonexistent.

Still a good time though, despite all of that. Re:Monster is hyper-aware of the power fantasy that it is, and is more than unabashed about it. It's very indulgent in every aspect of this guy's absolute ridiculousness, and for that it's actually enjoyable.

Just don't expect anything beyond that.