Yoshiyuki Momose directs the second full-length feature from the Japanese company spun out of Studio Ghibli, about a young girl’s make-believe friend who endeavors to save her and their relationship.

In the world of The Imaginary (Yaneura no Rajâ), every child has a secret friend, an invisible being with whom they create fictional scenarios and share their deepest secrets. For Amanda (voiced in the English-language version by Evie Kiszel ), the protagonist of this sweet but sprawling Studio Ponoc film, that person is a sprightly and protective blond being named Rudger (Louie Rudge-Buchanan). When Amanda comes home from school, they begin their adventures, flying across a grassy expanse populated by an industrious giant and a chatty squirrel or riding a musk ox through a snowy tundra. In the words of Rudger, “Amanda always imagines the most splendid worlds.” 

The action follows Rudger as he discovers an entire world of imaginary friends while trying to protect himself and Amanda from a sinister figure. The story endears with its focus on the role of secret friends in a young person’s life. Nishimura litters his screenplay with poignant insights about the power of enterprising play that will inspire audiences of all ages to remember a time when they needed only to rely on their minds to conjure new worlds and scenarios.

Rudger opens the film with three rules that govern his existence. “Amanda and I made a promise,” the hyperactive friend says in voiceover. “Whatever happens, never disappear, protect each other and never cry.”

That last point weighs heavy on The Imaginary because Amanda carries a profound grief throughout the film. Her father died (when is not specified), leaving the precocious child with her mother, Lizzie (Hayley Atwell). Mother and daughter live above a bookstore, a shop that Amanda’s father ran until he passed. Lizzie doesn’t feel equipped to manage the place as successfully as her deceased husband, so at the beginning of the film she’s hunting for a new job. 

While her mother prepares for interviews and nurses a deep sadness, Amanda channels her grief into imaginative scenarios. The Imaginary foregrounds the school-aged child’s adventures with Rudger, showing the way the duo make their own fun. There’s a thrill to their brush with mystical aquatic life — otherwordly jellyfish, for instance — and the transitions between one environment and another. In one moment, the gelatinous creatures morph into a single being that engulfs the giggling pair before spitting them out into a lush field of flowers.

The film’s action kicks off when a strange and sly man, Mr. Bunting (Jeremy Swift), knocks on the bookshop door claiming he is surveying children in the area. In reality, he hunts imaginary friends, eating them to keep his own mind sharp. Mr. Bunting is after Rudger, whom he believes is a quality imaginary.

During one unfortunate run-in, in which Rudger and Amanda try to flee from Mr. Bunting, Amanda gets hit by a car and ends up in a coma. Rudger, now unmoored from his creator, ends up in a place where abandoned imaginary friends live for eternity. This town is in a library and is powered by books, which hold some of the world’s most imaginative tales. The creatures — Old Dog (LeVar Burton), a giant pink hippo, a curious clock and other human-adjacent friends like Rudger — live harmoniously as they wait to be claimed by new, younger kids. 

Although Rudger, who early in the film begs Amanda to let him walk through walls so he can see more of the world, finds this land fascinating, he misses his human companion. Despite the protestations of his new friends, which include a red and blue eyed feline named Zinzan (Kal Penn) and the town’s de facto leader Emily (Sky Katz), Rudger sets off to reconnect with Amanda.