1225th movie, 194th from the 1990s, 413th on Netflix

Rating: 7/10

Distraction Rating: 5/10

Plot armour rating: n/a, animated

Another hard mode anime.

I lost the plot several times, and since no character was solidly good or evil, my lack of attention made the story all that more confusing.

I have to love all the extremely bitchy demons in this film. Talk about passive-aggressive demon beasts.

There are multiple essays online about the entire deeper meaning of this movie, and you are free to read them and watch the movie to catch all of it’s subtleties. As is often the case for Miyazaki, he has something to say. The problem here is that I do not have the attention span to properly sit down and invest my time and dissect all of it.

What I did see was that much like real life, there are no completely good or evil people; everyone is tainted with darkness. Unlike the main character, who requires a demon parasite to help him find his inner demon.

There is something about humanity and nature co-existing, and the main characters believe that it is possible.

The women come from sex work and are belittled by the men and empowered by their demon-witch den mother. At the same time, the demon-witch den mother also does not give a rats arse about them. Actually, she is rather selfish and only cares about what she wants.

There is a lot of selfishness in this movie, which might actually be part of the story if I had bothered to pay attention.

I feel the only truly likeable characters are the sex workers, as they are the only people in the movie with true empathy, and I ended up feeling for them the most.

It is a very good movie, but focus is important.