The little 80 minutes film is a very good animated film. It, however, is not a masterpiece in any way shape or form. There are several problems: in terms of plot it is too simplistic as it is a film made for small children and thus can easily bore most adults. I gave it 7/10 mostly because this film inspirited Miyazaki and Takahata to make true masterpieces out of this art form.
The quality of the animation, while good for the 1950's, is not remotely comparable to more recent films, such as Princess Mononoke, which have much more realistic physics. Visually this film is quite mediocre as well: the backgrounds lack the details from modern animated features (such as the already mentioned Princess Mononoke). The soundtrack is decent, however. For me it is hard to understand that someone which has watched and understood most Ghibli films would think that this is a masterpiece.
Also, finally, there is no such thing as "liking" animation, as there isn't such thing as "liking" live action. Animation is not a genre. Period. It encompasses a huge variety of genres and thus someone who doesn't like this could like Princess Mononoke, for instance, which is a completely different film. Their only similarity is the fact that they are animated and that they have talking animals.
The quality of the animation, while good for the 1950's, is not remotely comparable to more recent films, such as Princess Mononoke, which have much more realistic physics. Visually this film is quite mediocre as well: the backgrounds lack the details from modern animated features (such as the already mentioned Princess Mononoke). The soundtrack is decent, however. For me it is hard to understand that someone which has watched and understood most Ghibli films would think that this is a masterpiece.
Also, finally, there is no such thing as "liking" animation, as there isn't such thing as "liking" live action. Animation is not a genre. Period. It encompasses a huge variety of genres and thus someone who doesn't like this could like Princess Mononoke, for instance, which is a completely different film. Their only similarity is the fact that they are animated and that they have talking animals.