The Imaginary

The Imaginary (2023) is a Studio Ponoc anime you can watch online on iFILM. A girl named Amanda dreams up a friend called Rudger, and as long as she believes in him, he is real and at her side, even though no one else can see him.

Then the thing Amanda never bargained for happens. Rudger ends up alone, and a strange man with a ghostly daughter is hunting the imaginary friends children have stopped believing in. To keep from fading away, Rudger hides in an attic among other forgotten Imaginaries and looks for a way back to Amanda while her memory of him still holds. Director Yoshiyuki Momose builds a world where a child's faith literally decides who survives and who dissolves into nothing.

Adapted from A.F. Harrold's novel, the film comes from Ponoc, the studio founded by former Ghibli artists, and it shows: watercolor light, fluid movement, real sorrow tucked under the bright surface. This is family animation that lands harder for the adult in the room, all about how we abandon the things we once loved. Stream The Imaginary (2023) online on iFILM.