Masterfully crafted by the master craftsman Hayao Miyazaki, Japanese genius behind anime classic hits such as Spirited Away, Ponyo, and Castle in the Sky, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, is a 2011 PS BANDAI videogame.

It follows the adventures of young boy Oliver, affectionately dubbed Ollie, who after losing his mother in a tragic accident finds himself transported to another world. A magical world, full of faeries, talking cats, as well as scary villains that are going around breaking peoples hearts. Drippy, Oliver’s doll turned faerie, informs Oliver that his mother’s Soulmate, a person with the same soul in this parallel magical world as in Oliver’s home world, the great sage Alicia, is alive and in danger from the evil heart-breaking sage Shadar.

With the help of new friends that are the Soulmates of his old friends, Oliver sets out to become a great sage powerful enough to defeat Shadar and save his mothers Soulmate Alicia, in the hope that that will save his mother back home in his home world.

This game is so beautiful, and I wish that it was a TV show or full movie because it is genuinely my favorite Miyazaki story hands down!!

It is very beautiful and tragic, dealing with grief and coping – and that is what I’m going to be talking about today. (There will be spoilers in the rest of this post, so if you don’t want to be spoiled – then just hit subscribe now, and enjoy another blogpost. 😀 )

I believe that the case can be made that the magical world in this game is all made up – it’s all in Ollie’s head. He never actually traveled anywhere, he didn’t learn any magic, he just played around town, letting his imagination run wild while coming to terms with the death of his mother and the reality of his future.

To start off, in the very beginning when Oliver is first mourning the loss of his mother Drippy, a doll that was a gift from his mother, comes to life and starts telling Ollie-boy to stop crying. Because, Oliver knows that his mother would want him to be a big boy, and big boys don’t cry. Big boys are brave, kind and strong.

From there, Oliver and Drippy travel to the magical world – choosing to do SOMETHING as opposed to staying home alone and wallowing in grief. Oliver and Drippy embark on a courageous mission.

In the magical world he encounters all manner of people with broken hearts, that have Soulmates in his own hometown. Drippy informs Oliver that it his job to heal the broken-arted. Because, Oliver himself is broken-hearted and he needs to do something to heal himself. Sometimes, the best way to heal ourselves is to heal others. In order to heal the broken-hearted people in the magical world Oliver needs to help the people in his own hometown.

There are these “Nightmares” that he has to battle, Nightmare monsters that drain people of all enthusiasm, kindness, courage, restraint, belief, confidence, love, and ambition. He helps the neighbor girl, who’s been made to stay inside by her father, who’s been overcome by fear, and in the magical world that little girl becomes his companion and fierce friend. And on and on and on…

Ultimately, he faces off against Shadar and discovers that Shadar, the evil villainous sage that has been spreading darkness and despair, is HIS soulmate. Which shows that Oliver’s worst enemy is himself – it’s his anger, his bitterness, his despair, his grief that has poisoned everything. His mission to defeat Shadar can just be viewed as his mission to defeat his own Nightmare.

But, it’s not just defeating – it’s healing. Shadar needs to be healed. Oliver needed to see what he was capable of becoming and then to get himself, Shadar, to realize his wrongdoing – which he does.

Once Shadar has been defeated, Oliver moves on to facing off against the titular villain, The White Witch, another little girl who lost her father at a young age and then made mistakes so grievous that she felt as if the only solution left to her was to destroy everything, so that “a new world could begin.”

To which Oliver responds “You can’t just tear it up and start over. It may not be perfect, but nothing is. So, you make the best of what you’ve got. When things go wrong, you have to try and make them right. And you have to keep on trying, no matter how hard it gets. That’s what life is all about. Even when you’re all alone, you can’t give up. Sooner or later, someone’s sure to come along… You take things as they come, and you keep on going.”

Ultimately, it’s a story about healing grief – healing the grief in ourselves and others, and allowing others to heal the grief in us and teaching them how to heal the grief in themselves.

After all of the magic – Oliver returns home saying, “Mom, I’m going to get on with my life. And I know you’ll always be watching over me.” You see him pass all of the people in his homeworld, that were the people that he’d helped in the magical world, and you realize – he never went to any other place. He just met and helped the people in his own life, using his imagination to help him cope with his own grief, healing the grief of others to heal himself.

It’s such a good story!

I hope I explained things well! It’s such a long, complex game, with so many storylines and layers, that I hope that I explained what I wanted to explain clearly.

I’m not a gamer, but I loved this game so much and would highly recommend it to people of every age and sex.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed todays blogpost!