When Marnie Was There: Anime Movie Review

Are you having a hard time finding that perfect Anime Movie and have to keep looking for another ghibli movie to watch? Maybe this movie is just for you, as it can touch your heart as well as satisfy your curiosity.

A family of tiny people called Borrowers live under the floorboards of a house, in a beautiful old city, with their father and mother. They have only one rule: never let anyone into the house who isn't a borrower.

Arrietty is small enough to slip in through a keyhole to explore what there is to see. Arrietty is a Studio Ghibli film released in 2010. The story of Arrietty is an adaptation of the classic novel The Borrowers by Mary Norton, and tells the story of a young girl who borrows items from the house she lives in.

The film was well received by critics. Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 80 based on 32 reviews.

Table of Contents

Anime Review

Author

Characters

Anime Review

This Anime movie was produced in 2014 and is an anime psychological drama film. I remember when I first watched this film I really didn’t know the genre of it, because I didn’t read the description and thought that it was another romance film of Studio Ghibli. But, when the movie was in the middle part already, I was like ‘boy, I was wrong’. I realized that time to not just assume genders by how they look.

When Marnie Was There is one of the Studio Ghibli films that I think was explained thoroughly in the movie, because I noticed that most of the company’s movie endings are just up to us viewers to imagine.

But the question is, Is ‘When Marnie Was There’ worth watching?

Yes, especially if you want to watch something that’s short yet related to family and drama. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I really didn’t know what this movie was about when I watched it, because most of the times when I see a movie that’s produced by Studio Ghibli I just watch it immediately without taking a look at the description.

This movie has actually a very good plot twist, that even I had goosebumps with it. The story is just amazing and I like how the two main protagonists slowly built their friendship.

Anna Sasaki is one of the main protagonists in the movie, she was sent to a rural seaside town because of her bad asthma attacks and was suggested to move to a place where the air’s clean. There, she met Marnie when she was wandering around the place and saw an abandoned mansion, seeing Marnie inside it. Anna got curious with Marnie and they eventually introduced themselves to each other and that’s how their friendship progressed. They also meet each other secretly a lot of times.

One of my favorite things in this film is Anna and Marnie’s friendship. I thought that it was really beautiful and magical. What I mean by magical is their connection to each other.

I don’t actually wanna spoil you with the plot twist of this movie, so I’ll just talk about what I felt when it was revealed.

My first thought when I finished watching this movie is how the story was written neatly and along with that are the small details you may not focus about while watching the film would actually turn out to be connected to each other. Without giving any exaggeration, I actually had a goosebump when the plot twist was shown and I thought that this movie answered every question I had in my mind

There are also a lot of relatable scenes in the movie and that can make you feel connected to the movie more

This movie is one of my highly suggested movies produced by Studio Ghibli especially if you’re into movies that relate to drama and mystery. I love the connection between the two characters and along with that is the plot twist, I’m sure you’ll really be surprised about. This film actually satisfied my curiosity and I love how everything was explained thoroughly.

If you’re curious about the plot twist which I kept talking about, maybe you should consider this film and watch this in your free time?

Author

Hiromasa Yonebayashi is a Japanese director and animator, who also used to work for Studio Ghibli. Some of the movies he had worked on and had gained popularity are “The Secret World of Arrietty” and “Mary and the Witch's Flower”.

The anime movie was actually adapted from the book of Joan Mary Gale Robinson which has the same name “When Marnie Was There”. She is a British author known for writing and illustrating children’s books. One of her outstanding works is “Mary-Maryl” which was released in 1957.

Characters

Anna Sasaki, she’s the main protagonist in the film and she appears to be a curious young girl who also lacked self-esteem. I believe she’s one of the relatable characters in the movie. As an introvert myself I totally understand her actions and thoughts throughout the film. She doesn’t have many friends and was pulling away from the kids in the movie, but when she met Marnie she slowly changed and became a more happy kid.

Marnie is one of the main characters in the movie, her character is quite a mystery in the movie and it will be eventually revealed. Compared to Anna, Marnie is more of an extrovert. She’s a kind and lively person who also is willing to take risks for the people close to her.

References:

Ide, W. (12 June 2016). When Marnie Was There review – Japanese adaptation of a very British book.

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