Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms

Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms is a Japanese fantasy drama about a girl from a people who stop aging in their teens. After an invading army destroys her home to steal the secret of longevity, Maquia escapes into the wilderness. There, she finds an orphaned human infant named Ariel and decides to raise him. The story follows their emotional bond over many years as Ariel grows into a young man while Maquia remains eternally young, forcing her to confront the reality of his mortality.

The film was co-directed by Mari Okada, who also wrote the screenplay, and Toshiya Shinohara. This project was the first of two directed works for Okada and one of several for Shinohara, whose career includes four Inuyasha movies and the 2009 film Gurren Lagann the Movie: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars. The voice cast features Manaka Iwami as Maquia, Miyu Irino as the adult Ariel, and Yuuki Sakurai as the child version of the character.

The movie earned 2 million USD at the worldwide box office. It has a rating of 7.4/10 on IMDb based on 11,000 votes and 8.1/10 on TMDB from 735 votes. These audience scores are similar to the film critics' rating of 7.9/10 from 26 reviews.