The English dub for Ni no Kuni, a Studio Ghibli animated movie, is arriving on Netflix in less than two weeks.
Ni no Kuni is perhaps best known for its 2011 JRPG Wrath of the White Witch, an ambitious collaboration between Japanese game developer Level-5, world-renowned animation house Studio Ghibli, and masterclass composer Joe Hisaishi.
Launched in 2011, the game has received numerous amazing reviews. Many critics praised the game for its heartfelt story told through beautiful animated cutscenes from Studio Ghibli.
It tells the story of Oliver, a child transported to another world in search of saving his dearly departed mother. It’s an unusually nuanced story within the context of JRPG’s, a genre somewhat maligned by tropes and clichés.
In 2018, Level-5 released a sequel to Wrath of the White Witch titled Revenant Kingdom, a decidedly different game yet equally ambitious to its predecessor. Although Revenant Kingdom received mostly strong reviews, some critics voiced disappointment with the fact that Studio Ghibli didn’t return to collaborate on the sequel. But just a year after the release of Revenant Kingdom, a new Ni no Kuni project is nearly here, but this time in the form of cinema.
The Netflix release for Ni no Kuni is just around the corner. It will be available on the streaming platform on January 16, 2020.
Ni no Kuni is directed by Studio Ghibli animator Yoshiyuki Momose. The plot of the movie seems to be loosely inspired by the events of the games and described as, “Two average teens go on a magical quest to save the life of their friend and her counterpart from another world. But love complicates their journey.”
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