So, I have to admit I was kind of disappointed in this movie. Not because it wasn’t good or wasn’t clean. But there was a giant frickin’ dragon on the cover, so I thought it would be all about dragons. While it does have some dragons in it, their presence is very minimal.

Having been disappointed at the lack of dragons in this movie, I still enjoyed it very much. Like many other Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki (this one was actually by the son Goro, not the father Hayao) the best way I can describe the pace of this movie is: relaxing.

This story is basically following Prince Arren, who killed his father the King and ran away, and Ged, a wandering wizard, who takes him in after finding him in the desert. The world is in trouble. Magic has begun to disappear from the world and Ged is trying to discover the truth behind it before the balance of the world is completely destroyed.

The animation, as usual for Studio Ghibli, is extremely well done. The plot progresses smoothly with a slow trickle of information to allow you to learn more about the characters. The English translation is also done rather well with one exception. There is a scene with a girl, Teru, singing alone on a hill. Usually for these kinds of scenes the audio reverts to the original Japanese for both the language and voice actor. In this case they translated to English and used the English VA. Audio-wise this was fine and flowed well, but visually they obviously had trouble getting the words to match the original lip motions.

The content was extremely clean. I think there might have been one or two bad words but I don’t recall for sure. I actually meant to write this review right after watching the movie but it has been a few weeks so some of those details have gotten a bit fuzzy. I highly recommend this movie if you want a nice quiet evening cuddled up on the couch.