Dan Jolin of "Empire" said that a potential theme could be that of lost innocence. Miyazaki attributes this to his experience of making his previous film, "Porco Rosso", and the wars in the former Yugoslavia, which he cites as an example of mankind never learning, making it difficult for him to go back to making a film such as "Kiki's Delivery Service", where he has been quoted as saying "It felt like children were being born to this world without being blessed. How could we pretend to them that we're happy?"