Kubo and the Two Strings · reception & legacy

2016 · Travis Knight

How Kubo and the Two Strings has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Rapturous reviews in 2016 couldn't save it from underperforming at the box office, kicking off the perennial 'audiences don't show up for Laika' lament. It's since settled in as the studio's crown jewel — the go-to example when animation fans argue stop-motion deserves more love.

What's debated

The recurring flashpoint is its casting — white A-listers voicing Japanese characters in a Japan-set story — which fans still weigh against their affection for the film, alongside the evergreen 'it was robbed by Zootopia at the Oscars' grievance.

Its footprint

Its opening line, 'If you must blink, do it now,' has become one of the most-quoted openings in modern animation — a fixture of reviews, tattoos, and list titles.

Where it stands

A Letterboxd darling and animation-nerd litmus test: routinely ranked as Laika's best and cited as proof of what handmade animation can still do.

★ Did you know? It earned an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects — the first animated film to do so since The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) — and its giant skeleton was certified by Guinness as the largest stop-motion puppet ever built.

Named by the director

Influences Travis Knight has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

Akira Kurosawa — Knight repeatedly cited Kurosawa's epics as a guiding influence on the film's sweep and imagery.
Hayao Miyazaki — Knight named Miyazaki as a touchstone for grounding fantasy in emotional truth.
Ray Harryhausen — Knight acknowledged the skeleton sequence as a deliberate homage to Harryhausen's stop-motion monster work.