With dazzling images bogged down by rules and explanations, The Imaginary becomes a frustrating experience. The Yoshiyuki Momose-directed, Studio Ponoc-produced animated adventure, now available on Netflix, is deeply moving at times, adapting the British children’s novel of the same name to tell a story from the perspective of an imaginary boy in danger of being forgotten. However, just as it approaches poignant moments, it swerves in too many muddled, plot-heavy directions to stick the emotional landing.
Opening with a scene of young Amanda Shuffleup (Rio Suzuki) and her secret companion Rudger (Kokoro Terada) soaring through the sky, The Imaginary sets a commendably quick pace. It yanks us through a wonderfully energetic daydream sequence, filled with shimmering constellations and rain falling upward, which soon gives way to the reality of Amanda’s attic bedroom.
Amanda’s mother Lizzie (Sakura Ando) is often distracted, as she tries to run her bookstore in a quaint town inspired by the English countryside. Amanda’s father, for reasons later revealed, is nowhere to be seen, and so the sprightly youngster spends time on her own—which is to say, in the company of the little blonde Rudger, whom no one else can see—in a reality colored with less vibrant hues than the ones her imagination conjures.
