Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on October 2012

A hermit living in a barren landscape that was once a lush forest explains to a visiting lad how all this destruction was all caused by his own greed, and what might be done to put things right. Clearly against any ecological recovery is a powerful bottled-air tycoon in a walled city populated by oblivious consumers. The padding that’s traditionally necessary to turn a 10-minute Dr. Seuss picture-book read into a feature length movie is blander here than usual. The film gets points for its ecological message, but has considerably marginalized that message for the sake of fluffy, comic effect.