Mary and the Witch's Flower

This is from a lot of the animators who used to work at Studio Ghibli before Hiyao Miyazaki announced his retirement - and it captures a lot of the look of those films - lovely scenery, charming character designs and personalities, and a childish sense of wonder at a strange and fascinating universe. But it's a case here where all the ingredients seem right but it never quite jumps up from "charming" to "bewitching" - whether it's the somewhat generic story, the simplistic baddies or the odd pacing which goes from "lackadaisical" to "full throttle apocalyptic" in the last third with no particular gradient in between.

Noting that I have only seen the Japanese dub, not the English dub, which has the advantage of Jim Broadbent and Kate Winslet who may add a few more idiosynracies to a familiar playing out of genre tropes.