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Parents' Guide to

Children Who Chase Lost Voices

By Brian Costello, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 11+

Smoking, strong violence in surreal anime adventure.

Movie NR 2011 116 minutes
Children Who Chase Lost Voices Movie Poster

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

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Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
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This is an anime that represents all that defines anime in good and maddening ways. Children Who Chase Lost Voices has an interesting premise in its tale of characters who enter Agartha, aka "the land of the dead," in search of lost loved ones. There's lush animation, incredible detail, the sensitive tween/teen who doesn't fit in at school, coming-of-age angst and melodrama, and earnest emotion. There's also the all-too-common anime tendency to try to tell everything at once, with overly complicated worlds and dozens of side stories that derail, distract, and confuse from the central story.

What's easy enough to follow in the first act begins to unravel as the second act goes on, and by the third act, you just hope there's a happy-enough ending with the requisite anime ballad during the closing credits. It can feel overwhelming with all of the stories. Again, this is a common tendency in a lot of anime, but it slightly takes away from what is otherwise an adventure story in a mythical realm.

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