Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Fantastic!

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

How about we see Hotarubi No Mori E (2002) from a different perspective?Hotaru is suffering from melancholia same as Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995). Ayanami Rei had no soul, thus she was sad without knowing why she was sad. Here, Hotaru is dejected, distanced from the real world without knowing why. She wants to understand the cause of her remoteness, why she wants to escape reality, why she wants to touch Gin. Gin is not a real person but a memory. Remember the two children who ran across them in the forest? Saw the similarity between them? The same mask. A mask that hides the identity. A touch that can erase an existence. The moment she understands the cause of her detachment from people, it will disappear. But in the end, it wasn't the touch but the original memory, that erased it. Those two children were them in the past. The forest here is her memory, perhaps on a deeper level even life. Just that instead of the sea of blood, there is a forest of fireflies (again, doesn't it remind of Hotaru No Haka (1988)?) The same boy and girl as The End of Evangelion. Here, the context is much deeper than it seems. Touching your dejection can cause it to disappear, but we don't want that. We don't want to know the cause of our origin, we want to escape reality as much as we can. The ageless love with melancholia. Obviously this film has several different perspectives, from feminism to fragility to desire, but this particular perspective arrested me and made me think how a simple film could be this deep. My original reaction to the film was:Gosh! What a beautiful, deep, resonant movie! Cherish every moment of it! <3Depth - 2/2Importance - 1/2Relevance - 2/2Artistry - 1/2Imagination - 2/2Total - 8/10And yes, it was most definitely tear-jerking, although I didn't really cry. Somewhat mesmerized by the sheer beauty of it. Definitely the most beautiful anime of all time. I was pretty much inclined to give it a 10/10 but then I realized I'm not supposed to let personal emotions in criticism. But seriously, whoever made it, kudos! Arigato for this gem! <3P.S.: If you wish to know more about the rating scheme above, check out my other review.

"It is sad not to love, but it is much sadder not to be able to love." The quote by Miguel de Unamuno becomes soulful and symbolic when we refer to it as in the context of this amazing anime. It's believed that the genre of romance has grown stiff and it seems very difficult to find a movie that does not deplete of originality and true sensuality, a genre that has nothing fresh to offer and most suggested things are a cliché these days. Well then, I'm truly glad I can say that whoever sports that belief is wrong. The evidence: Hotarubi no Mori e.

This film is a flashback of Hotaru as a child, growing up with a masked guy named Gin. There is a plot hole on Hotaru getting lost in a forest, as clichéd as it seems, it's not really her getting lost that really concerns me but the reason on how she got lost. I don't know if she ran away from her parents or what.There is also lots of hitting a child which I do not approve on. They're kind of played for humor but 6-year-old children can be really sensitive about getting hurt so I don't see why they would whack a child on the head. A good spanking would be better. But like how much Gin hurts a child when she had no idea that her touching can cause him problems is just frustrating to me.I didn't care for Hotaru, I thought she was a stupid little girl. I especially hated how she cried with her hands over her face for a long time at the age of 9-10 year old!

The spirit beloved by the young heroine is obliterated because he accidentally saves a stumbling boy from a fall, so all that remains for them a is one moment of bliss in a lethal embrace and then a lifetime of remembrance for the girl... What a sad ending... But that's just the surface. Even worse, it's missing the point!The girl truly loves the spirit. She apparently loves what is special about him: His gentleness, his calmness, his willingness to help, his touch with nature, his playfulness, his fidelity. She also genuinely cares about his well-being, for example worrying what he might do in winter, and she makes plans for becoming able to spend more time with him, planning her professional life accordingly. So far, so good.However, does the spirit love the girl? His apparent fidelity might make you think so. But think again. The other spirits reveal that he wanted to experience the embrace of a human for a long time. What exactly tells us it matters to him it's this specific girl? He might have taken anybody! But remember he can't just get *any* human because the people of the village nearby are scared by the spirits of the forest. And while the girl does occasionally show warm feelings with respect to him, he is just kind and protective with respect to her, but i didn't notice much expression of specific feelings, and i doubt that's just due to the mask.Does the spirit care about her well-being? It doesn't really look like that. He knows how much she likes him and how important he is for her; after all, she spent the best part of her childhood's holidays with him and clearly says that she wants to spend her life with him, making specific plans to that effect. He can't assume she will cope and just move on with life if he goes away; there is a real risk her heart might get shattered. He is to blame for that: Over the years, he did all to make sure she would love him. Now, he has the opportunity to spend a lifetime with her and decides against it. Can that be love? Hardly.The stupid tragedy he is playing at the end is completely threadbare. The boy he touches is running away from the forest after the festival, and they discussed before that there are often human children at the festivals, so it's completely obvious that this boy is likely human, running home. The spirit touches the human child on purpose to be obliterated, and thus to force the girl to embrace him in his death, which before she repeatedly rejected, because she loved him; now she can't reject, again precisely because she loves him... Forcing the most explicit sexual act one is capable of, against the will of the other person, that's plain and ugly rape; the only missing element is that he is incapable of physical violence: he can't possibly rape her by beating her with a stick... But he uses her own love instead to force her hand, which is little less ugly than physical violence.If he had really loved her, he would have grown old with her, and maybe embraced her on her deathbed. Maybe, if she would have been willing then.There is little to make us think this girl could be stupid; quite to the contrary, she's portrayed as courageous, inquisitive, sensitive, patient, and tenacious. Very likely, even if she doesn't understand in her grief on the spot, she will understand shortly thereafter that her love was cultivated for a decade, then used as a lever for rape on her, by the person she truly loved, that turned out not to be a person, but a spirit that apparently never truly loved her.I hope she will survive that; it will be a tough lesson to learn, and it will be even tougher to keep a kind heart after that.Other commentators say there is no moral in this. Well, there is: Be aware you may end up betrayed even by the one you loved most, all your life, no matter how sweet it all seems. Does this only apply to spirits? The film provides one glimpse that this is not so, that it actually wants to depict generic human behavior rather than indulge in ghost-bashing: The schoolboy at the girl's home town tricks her into taking his hand just as the spirit does, by pretending that she must take his hand in order to not slip on the icy road, even though that doesn't have consequences nearly as dire.What an abyssal, pitch-black morale to a seemingly innocuous, light-hearted story in the most beautiful pastel colors. There is some high art in hiding such a beastly wolf's heart in such a lovely sheepskin. Yet, i can't convince myself to like the film. This story has been shown too often already: A handsome man cold-bloodedly seducing a sensitive, loving, caring woman, using her for his personal climax, then abandoning her for eternity. Yikes.