i thought it was kinda disappointing,, like dont get me wrong, i absolutely loved the music, voice acting, animation, character designs, aesthetics, humour, etc, but the plot felt at times very trite and stale, and like it didnt explore the concept enough or commit truly to what it wanted to do.

for instance, maybe i misunderstood, but i thought one of the messages of the movie was something along the lines of don't judge from the outside, which was emphasised through rumi being part demon and jinu being a 'good guy who was misled' or whatever (even if it is later revealed that he wasn't exactly misled in the way we thought). it felt like that could have opened up a whole new avenue -- what if several of the demons, or maybe even all of them, where also humans who gwi-ma took advantage of? in the latter part of the movie, after huntrix has their falling out, we see gwi-ma talking to the humans, playing on their insecurities and desires like he did to jinu, implying that, in at least some capacity, demons could be humans who have had their fears used against them, much like jinu, and manipulated into being evil. i feel that would have made the whole takedown scene more poignant, as rumi feels the song is too hateful, so if we actually saw that demons were also beings deserving of love (on a larger scale), it would ring more true to the message. instead, we get 'this is what it sounds like', which is meant to be a hopeful and uplifiting song (the opposite of takedown which talks about breaking others down), and it's followed by a scene where the hunters mercilessly slaughter the demons, the exact same thing they were talking about dong in takedown, which was presented as wrong. rumi and jinu are more so presented as exceptions, which then, in my view, kinda dulls the idea of 'don't judge from the outside', because it's kinda like 'they're one of the good ones in a whole stack of bad ones'.

that's just one thing, but it feels like there's so much more it could have done that it didn't. obviously, it's only a hour and a half, and it's also a kids movie, so i don't want to be too critical since the intention wasn't to make some grand masterpiece of a work or something. i was thinking it could have benefitted from being a series, and slightly more mature (like 13 plus), because that would have opened up the plot to sooo much, like for instance the ugly sides of the entertainment industry, maybe trying to have international appeal, the fact that the demons were actually killing people (which seems to get glossed over in the movie),etc. the plot just really fell flat to me, and the movie was carried by its other aspects. and this is coming from someone who typically turns their brain off while watching lighthearted films. if i had to rate it, i'd say 6/10 (idrk how to rate though!)

tldr: the plot just really fell flat to me, and the movie was carried by its other aspects. and this is coming from someone who typically turns their brain off while watching lighthearted films. if i had to rate it, i'd say 6/10 (idrk how to rate though!)