I think we've reached a point in animation where American cartoons is beating Anime and this review will tell us why.
If you must blink, do it now.
Kubo is a young boy with a story to tell and a unique gift for bringing origami to life with his Shamisen, a Japanese instrument used for telling such stories in old Japan. Kubo has to watch over his mother who barely escaped with their lives from the Moon Kingdom running away from the mother's sisters and father who wants Kubo's eyes but upon escaping the mother gets badly injured and Kubo is without his eye.
When the local village puts on a festival of remembrance, Kubo making a makeshift grave for his fallen father ends up staying out past dark and gets chased down by his cruel aunts. In effort to save Kubo, his mother sacrifices herself to save him leaving behind a Monkey guardian who helps Kubo locate a set of magic armor that can protect him from his grandfather, they are later joined by a samurai beetle with no memory as they set out to find the armor.
No more story otherwise spoilers.
Kubo and the Two Strings is incredible, the design that went into it really gives a mystical feel and is not afraid to take risks to aid the story and leaves you wanting more, it never feels rushed, it doesn't play on cliches and the ending while confusing gives you the sense that there's more to the enemy's motives than it seems and that were not finished with Kubo's adventure, it feels like a crime that not many people saw it.
To reiterate my opening statement, I've noticed the decline in my anime reviewing and moving more towards cartoons recently, this is because two to one, cartoons have been doing way better than anime is at this point in time.
Cartoons have become the serious groundbreaking epics that draws everyone to watch like Game of Thrones is to live tv while anime is having a serious identity crisis as it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be now and is trying to revived older anime to cover the short fall, the next anime review will serve as a warning while this movie shines a positive light on animation in the west.
