Despair and hope. These terms may seem opposite from one another, but they come in contact when dealing with nearly impossible odds. Stories involving coming home from Homer’s The Odyssey or going through a journey to accomplish an impossible task from J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings have similar tones and themes. Despair involves the daunting odds of the protagonist(s) defeating the conflicts that arise that give us, the audience, a sense of dread and makes us care for our characters to succeed. Hope is the audience’s reaction that they feel out of the despair that we see from the characters’ perspective.

Fun and simple stories are always welcomed. Children’s fantasy as a genre fits these two things correctly. We’ve all grown up with these timeless tales that transformed us at the early stage of our development. There was once a time in anime, specifically in the 70s, when studios adapted old children’s literature from the late 19th to early 20th century. Mary and the Witch’s Flower gives off these vibes from my experience viewing it.