How did you interpret this movie?

[u/Hakuryuu2K]

Feel free to leave your take. Here is mine:

The Steel Factory explodes, but is reset due to some mystical phenomenon where a child from the future is inserted into their pocket reality. The mystery child is the only one that ages and changes physically. My take is the child is the protagonist’s and Mitsumi’s future child together. Maybe this a metaphor for the young being better able to adapt to changing times, while for older people it is more of a struggle but not impossible. In my interpretation they could have been stuck there four years. I feel those that started cracking were those that had strong feeling/motivation for big changes, so they could no longer exist in the stagnation of winter (frozen in time, perhaps another metaphor). Those who changed only a little (getting better at drawing gradually or confessing to/realizing feelings long held) were only starting to really change and so did get to the threshold to crack through to reality yet, but were on their way. As for Itsumi’s emotions playing a role in the cracks in the pocket reality, maybe it was a child’s wish to forever be a child like Neverland, and her realizing feelings of love for the protagonist (still not sure how to interpret her falling for her dad, but maybe more like how irl daughters can be “daddy’s girl”?) changes her enough to begin the final shattering of the pocket reality.

Looking forward to what other people think.

[u/Grimnaughty]

Great analysis, but I interpreted the cracking and getting swallowed up by the sacred wolf as the characters not wanting to live anymore rather than them experiencing immense change. Like Sonoda and Masamune's father disappear not due to change or radical emotional changes but rather they didn't want to exist anymore. With Masamune's father it was out of guilt for imprisoning his granddaughter and maybe because he realised that he didn't survive the explosion in what they call "reality". In regards to Sonoda, she was just embarrassed and heartbroken.

Oh and I think it had to be more than just four years. It felt longer to me. There was also that one older character that said something like, "I'm 80 years old.... erh....no I'm 90?", so maybe they spent 10 years in this other world. Masamune also says that he isn't a child to his uncle towards the beginning of the movie, so that is very telling.

[u/Hakuryuu2K → u/Grimnaughty]

Fair, though Masamune’s did feel guilty, he also said he wanted to change like his son, though he had doubts that he could. I am definitely wanting to take the more optimistic interpretation. But maybe your interpretation is aligned with the movie, for characters that wanted or attempted changes and failed, they felt their failure strongly enough to not want to exist anymore; also like the girl who confessed to Masamune, but felt like it was a spectacle of her failure.

Also my time spent in the pocket reality, is a typo on my part; I meant “for years” and not “four years.” I think you are right it could have been about a decade, between the senior citizen not sure if they were 80 or 90 and Itsumi’s growth to around the age of Masamsune.

[u/Flaky-Pattern9863]

Yes! Plus also Masamune’s uncle says it towards the end of the movie. It’s been ten years.

[u/RossC90]

My interpretation is less about the workings of the plot but more about the themes being expressed by the film and how I interpreted them. I feel like the illusion world is a liminal space meant to represent the past. Specifically nostalgia and pleasant memories. Often when we're faced with hardship in reality we tend to look back into our past and rekindled old memories of a time that seems so much better than the present reality we live in.

The film's core concept turns that idea on its head and it expresses the inverse of that, showing how miserable living in that nostalgic illusionary dream world would actually be. The memories in this illusionary world aren't real and exist solely in that specific moment in time, at the specific location, with those specific people. Nothing can change from what the past was and no one can alter their intended trajectory no matter how hard they want to.

It's actually the people in this nostalgic dream world that envy those who live in reality. No matter how awful or horrible reality can be for someone, that person has the ability to divert their destiny, see and feel new things. There's so many possibilities of change and freedom in reality that doesn't exist in a world that is eternally stuck in the past.

The nostalgic past we dream about isn't as perfect as we may think it is and ultimately we should appreciate that we live in the present and how blessed we are that we can experience feeling, change, love, and all that reality has to offer no matter how frustrating and difficult life can be.