Movie Review: NiNoKuni

NiNoKuni is an animated fantasy movie. It is about Yuu, Haru, and Kotona. Yuu is a high school boy who has a mobility issue so he has to be in a wheelchair.  Yuu was at the hospital a lot and you never get told about his parents. You do get told that he is adopted by a girl who owns a flower shop though. He has two best friends named Haru and Kotona, they go to the same school and Haru is on the basketball team. 

One day they are walking home from school and they all split up to go to their own houses. Haru has his phone in his backpack and Kotona starts calling him because she is getting followed. He ends up never answering so she calls Yuu and he has his adoptive sister drive him to her. When Yuu gets there, Kotona has been stabbed by someone from another dimension. Haru ends up coming and insists on taking Kotona to the hospital instead of calling an ambulance. Kotona disappears and the boys obviously freak out. 

After, the boys end up almost getting hit by a car and are then transferred to the other world. They learn that both worlds are connected, and if one dies in the real world their counterpart dies in the other world. Hence the attempted assassination of Kotona as her counterpart is a princess in a big kingdom. Only some people can travel between both worlds, you just have to have some kind of connection. As Haru and Yuu go to the other world they realize that Yuu can now walk. 

They continue to go around the kingdom and find out that Kotona is a princess in this world. The princess has also been stabbed because whatever happens in one world, happens in the other. The boys sneak into the castle to try to find Kotona. As they wander around they end up finding the princess’ room and seeing her. They both walk up and Yuu takes the knife out. It had a magical spell cast upon it so it was really unexpected that he could take it out. 

Haru ends up joining the opposing evil kingdom after he and Yuu have a fight about Kotona because they both have mutual feelings for her. Haru gets evil magical powers from the other side and Yuu gets good powers from the good kingdom. As the movie proceeds, the fight gets more and more intense. Haru finally realizes that he should not have gone to the bad side and wants to go back to the good. Yuu and Haru get prepared to go back to their own world but right before they leave Haru lets go and stays. You then figure out that Haru and Yuu are the same person, just from different worlds. Hence why no one knew who Yuu’s parents were or where he really came from. He came to Haru’s world to get him to help the other world.