Mars Express captured this view of the flank of an enormous volcano, shaped by millions of years of fire and ice.

Images of the Martian landscape often seem to show a dead planet, no longer teeming with life (if it ever was) and no longer animated by plate tectonics. But this one reveals what was once a landscape in constant motion — sometimes sudden and violent, sometimes slow and inexorable. The northwest flank of the giant Martian volcano Arsia Mons bears the remnants of ancient lava flows, the tracks of long-vanished glaciers, and a long, deep scar left by magma straining to escape the confines of its chamber beneath the mountain.

What happens to your imaginary friends when you grow up?

The Imaginary, the charming new animated film from Studio Ponoc (a new-ish anime house full of ex-Ghibli talent), suggests they don’t disappear, they just... go somewhere else. That somewhere else is a library where all the abandoned imaginary friends of the world gather to take safe haven amongst others like them.

Directed by Yoshiyuki Momose, whose animation credits on Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away have been a large part of the marketing for this movie, The Imaginary certainly feels like a cousin to Studio Ghibli movies. It’s sweet. It’s whimsical. It’s got dazzling visuals and jaw-dropping fantastical moments that tip over into phantasmagoria. And it’s got a deeper emotional undercurrent that speaks to greater themes of grief and growing up.

But while the film boasts some truly impressive animation from Studio Ponoc, whose last film Mary and the Witch’s Flower was also similarly beautiful, The Imaginary’s biggest emotional moments never hit hard enough.