Incredible!

I love old-school classic anime. This film had nice and charming music. And the princess is a sweet, curious and endearing character, only when she is a child, that is.

When she got captured and cursed, the whole film just got lifeless, and for the entire 30+ minutes of her time as a hypnotized and lifeless adult, watching and waiting for her to rediscover her desire for freedom was so slow-paced and boring, it was almost an attack to the brain's patience. Even though after that, watching her resourcefulness and bravery to escape and help the village was mildly interesting, the magic and sorcery in the story left virtually no sense of wonder and amazement.

Boax, the villain of the movie, was supposed to be from a society of long gone sorcerers, but is instead portrayed as some random nobody. He didn't have to be some clichéd evil sorcerer who captured the princess with the intent to marry her and take her kingdom or something, but instead, he ended up being some old man with the personality of a brat and a lazy babysitter who treated the princess like a chore he didn't want to bother with.

Ample could have been a more caring and empathetic character who really wanted to save the princess. But instead, she just mildly tried to help for a moment, and then only passively gave the princess advice that would eventually help her remember her desire to be free to see the world.

Princess Arete was not so much better. For obvious reasons, she was much more interesting as a child, and not much to watch was an adult. But even when she broke the curse and became a child again, she wasn't at all afraid of Boax, managed to escape without incident, and didn't show any sort of desperation to escape from him or help the village get water. And she didn't see Boax as any threat to her at all.

All in all, this movie is full of bored characters who didn't show any strong motive of any kind, and has almost absolutely no bone of tension or conflict of any kind.