I received this as a gift months and months ago and kept forgetting to watch it. I don't watch a lot of DVDs, so when I have one it's something I have to consciously think about in order to recall that it's there in contrast to most of the anime that I watch, which sits right there on my PC in my movies folder, which I know I'm going to open at least once in a day. Anyway, I'm sorry I let it go this long without watching it because I enjoyed it quite a lot.

My first instinct is to call it "resembling a Miyazaki movie that's easy on the Miyazaki", but then it occurred to me that I haven't really seen an abundance of Japanese cinema outside of Miyazaki, so maybe that's just me attributing broad, cultural conceits to a single auteur.

Anyway, it was good and for a number of reasons.

But the visuals are beyond a shadow of a doubt the best part of the film. They are a testament to why some things are simply better if done in animation beyond the obvious budgetary considerations. Not only is the animation consistently smooth and crisp for the entirety of the film, but it shows such a vast breadth of distinct people, places and things without any seeming out of place. This is especially important for a film in which half of all events take place within dreams. The real world feels like the real world but more importantly, the dreams feel like dreams.

The film's depiction of dreams is possibly the best I've ever seen in a visual medium. They are reflections of the real world but make no sense by real world standards. The elements that compose them seem completely ordinary, but they've been put together in ways that make no sense. The characters experiencing waking dreams spout grammatically correct, but utterly nonsensical dialogue, the way people talk in their sleep in real life. In the dreams, the characters experience jumps from place to place in a stream of consciousness fashion, but just as you or I wouldn't be surprised or confused by the strange events unfolding in our own dreams, they aren't distrought by these.

Musically, it's fairly unique as well. The main uplifting tune that plays is whimsical and I personally enjoy it, it suits the character of Paprika, but I don't know how well it suits the plot of the film. Other pieces of music are equally whimsical, but at once slightly disturbing, which I found a lot more fitting. I think the uplifting theme perhaps does a lot towards making the movie seem brighter than it is. Whether this is a good or bad thing, I'm not sure.

This is a minor thing, but I really liked the wordplay with the name "Paprika" and that they waited to start using it far enough into the movie that I'd already accepted the word as a name. If it'd been used as a double entendre for spice too early on it would've felt contrived.

The story itself is captivating and takes a few unexpected turns so it's nothing to complain about, but the visuals and depiction of dreams are the true stars of the show.