Mexican animation film “I Am Frankelda”, which is currently available on Netflix in South Korea, is quite enchanting for its distinctive mood, texture, and detail. As a stop-motion animation film, the film gives us a series of lovely visual moments to be savored and then appreciated for their top-notch technical qualities, and it also touches us as a fantasy story of one young female storyteller struggling to follow her aspiration.

The film is actually a prequel to directors/writer/producers Arthuro and Roy Ambriz’s Cartoon Network Latin America TV animation series “Frankelda’s Book of Spooks”. I must confess that I never heard about that animation series before encountering the film itself, but, as far as I can see from the film itself, the directors are clearly talented animation filmmakers, and it is no surprise that the production of their film was helped a bit by Guillermo del Toro.

Anyway, the story, which is set in 1866, mainly revolves around a young woman named Francisca Imelda (voiced by Mireya Mendoza). Since she was very young, she has always wanted to be a writer, and her writings have helped her a lot on coping with the sadness from her artist mother’s early death. Despite the stern disapproval of her strict grandmother, she keeps going in her writing even when she grows up to be a young woman, and her favorite story subject is a fantastic realm called the Topus Terrenus and its various magical entities.

What do you know, it turns out that the Topus Terrenus is actually real in some parallel dimension outside the human world. The existence of this fantasy kingdom incidentally depends on the fears and nightmares from the human world, but, due to the ongoing modernization of the human world, there have been less fears and nightmares in the human world, and this certainly troubles the king and queen of the kingdom.

As watching his parents deeply concerned about the possible demise of their kingdom, Prince Herneval (voiced by Arturo Mercado Jr.) becomes quite determined to find any possible solution. He believes that they need a new storyteller who can write nightmares better than their royal adviser and “nightmare-teller” Procustes (voiced by Luis Leonardo Suárez), so he eventually approaches to Francisca on one day when she is daunted by another painful rejection of her stories mainly due to sexism

Prince Herneval subsequently takes Francisca to the Topus Terrenus, and Francisca is certainly delighted to see the manifestation of everything she has imagined. Although she is technically not allowed to come to the Topus Terrnus, she is welcomed by Prince Herneval’s parents anyway, and it looks like she will finally get a chance to shine as a storyteller.

Needless to say, Procustes, whose spider-like appearance and ingratiating attitude somehow remind of the villain character of Disney animation film “The Little Mermaid” (1989), is not so amused by this change represented by Fransisca. Besides deliberately discouraging her with his “advices”, he also plans to depose Prince Herneval’s parents along with several clan leaders supposed to serve under them, and the story naturally becomes darker and more tense as Procustes and his cohorts embark on their coup d’état.

Nevertheless, the film often takes its time for immersing us into its wondrous fantasy world, and you will certainly appreciate the painstaking efforts felt from the screen. As shown from a video clip presented in the middle of the end credits, the directors and their crew members really spent a lot of time for shooting each scene in the film, and their result is often remarkable for meticulous details to observe.

And we come to care more about our young heroine and her unlikely friend. As they struggle to save the kingdom along the story, Francisca gradually finds her inner strength and creativity again, and it is touching to see when she eventually takes the first significant forward step as a female storyteller not so far from, yes, Mary Shelley. In case of Prince Herneval, he also has his own drama along the story, and the story becomes poignant when he does a lot more than expected for not only his kingdom but also his dear human friend.

I must tell you that the story stumbles a bit during the final act, and it takes some time for me to follow what is going on during the expected climactic part. Besides, the story often feels limited as a prequel, and it inevitably looks like a mere opening which just leaves us with a promise on more stuffs to come via that TV animation series.

Although the half of this year has not passed yet, we already got several enjoyable animation films such as “Hoppers” (2026) and “Toy Story 5” (2026), and “I Am Frankelda” is certainly a nice addition to the list in my trivial opinion. Yes, it has some weak aspects to notice, but that is compensated a lot by its enchanting visual elements and engaging storytelling at least, and its directors demonstrate well their considerable potential and talent here in this film. It will be interesting to see what they will do next after this admirable achievement, and I will certainly look forward to that.