The reviews are uniformly favourable; all seven land on the positive side. Praise clusters on Satoshi Kon’s handling of the shifts between an actress’s life and the films she appears in, with most critics singling out how history, fantasy and memory run into one another across Japanese film genres without the story losing its thread. The animation itself draws admiration for its fluidity and its transitions between scenes; several reviewers treat the film as a tribute to Japanese cinema, and more than one finds it romantic and gentle rather than merely clever.
Reservations are mild and cluster on pacing and tone. The AV Club finds it melodramatic and at times disjointed, and Variety, writing from a festival screening, feels the invention flags after the first hour. The spread is narrow, from good to strong, with no dissenters; the disagreement is about how far the film’s playfulness sustains itself, not about whether it is worth watching.