I went in with great expectations, and I realized after finishing this book, that no matter what story it is, I should never expect too much because the end result will often be disappointing. Not like this book had much to offer either in terms of surprise, even if one went in without any expectation. 

It sells itself as a work that teaches ethics, philosophy, science, politics and some other aspects of life. But in my humblest opinion, it failed to give any meaningful lessons in all these fields. Most of them were pretty obvious, some others didn’t seem to offer any meaningful insight into life. For middle graders, they might be some novel ideas they haven’t had the opportunity to learn or witness in their lives yet, but even, being kind to others is something already taught at the tender age so at the end, they are not that important in my opinion. 

What made me dislike the book the most is probably chapter 9. Now I know what kind of regime Japan used to be before and during WWII, I know its citizens might not have access to the same knowledge we do in modern days, but even so, the idea presented in that chapter being about how western civilization helped the Third World through colonization, should not be recommended to middle graders, especially not to those from the western world, where the western superiority is already rampant. 

It doesn’t help either that the chapters followed each other in a way that seemed like that chapter 9 was the final lesson and the other chapters served as its build up.

In his times, the book might have been a revolutionary work that taught ethics to kids when it wasn’t the norm to do so, but in modern days, the book has not the same value it had in those days due to its outdated content. 

So yeah, this book being one of Hayao’s favorites, I had lots of expectations for it, but I ended up being disappointed.