Kotonoha no Niwa

Breathtakingly beautiful, but that's about all it is.

I really wanted to like this film, but I can't. I understand that Makoto Shinkai is known for romantic dramas that explore the human condition, but I feel that sometimes the way he goes about it is really contrived. There are clear attempts within Shinkai's directing to relay symbolism and other "subtle" insights into the characters' emotional conditions, but they ultimately fall short. Sometimes the "camera" (from a directorial standpoint--I know there isn't actually a camera) lingers on certain things to insinuate deeper meaning--her heels at the end of the film, for example--but there isn't anything significant about ... them that merits the extra screen time. Yes, there's the theme of her "learning to walk" through life, and the fact that he's an aspiring cobbler, but the shoes themselves don't symbolize anything deeper. They're an empty symbol--or at least one that Shinkai doesn't bother to develop, and he includes such symbols so often in this film, that it feels like he's hitting me over the head with his attempts to be deep and introspective. After Hoshi o Ou Kodomo--which was a deviation into adventure/fantasy (and, in my opinion, a horribly flawed homage to Studio Ghibli)--I suppose he wanted to re-embrace his niche genre again. But, sigh, so forced.

The plot is very cliche, and the characters aren't developed enough to merit such a shortcoming. I don't feel anything for these characters, and I don't care what happens to them. I began to root for their romantic success near the end, but then the film just finished so quickly. Perhaps it's commentary on the fleeting nature of most human relationships, but I just couldn't buy into it. Also, the climax of the film is highly melodramatic for no real reason--I think I literally laughed when the rays of the sun burst onto the scene, augmented by the swells of dramatic music, and the heavy splashes of rainfall. (YES. There is dramatic sunshine AND torrential rain pour at the same time.)

The movie is beautifully animated, and I couldn't take my eyes away from the screen. But boy, did my head hurt from being hit over the head with his attempts to be deep. Worth a watch, but not if you're looking for a sincere consideration of the human condition.

I know many people will disagree with what I am about to write, but I have to say this was one of the most ridiculous movies I have ever watched to the point where I laughed.
Makoto Shinkai is a big hit at the moment after his successful movie 'Your Name' (which was extremey overrated) and I feel like people are just giving him praise because of that movie.
I can understand people's admiration towards the visual aspect of the animation since the artwork is beautiful (although it's not my personal taste) however the plot of the story is so laughable and absurd it defeats ... all the positive aesthetics of it.
Firstly, they portray the main character, Takao to be this dedicated and hardworking 15 year old high school student, yet for some unexplained reason he skips every morning class when it rains. On top of that he has some weird fetish for feet or shoes or whatever it is and asks the woman he loves to be his foot model.
Secondly, I don't understand the point of making Takao 15 and Yukino 27. That is an unnecessary 12 year age gap which is kinda pushing it. It also would have made more sense if Takao was 18 instead, because then he would've been in his last year of high school and thinking more about his future as a shoe maker.
Thirdly, there is so many unexplained occurrences that happen throughout the film so I went as far as to look up the summary to get a better understanding. Turns out Yukino had such a hard life because she was too beautiful and one of her students started bullying her because her boyfriend liked Yukino. Then Yukino stops going to school and instead drinks beer to the point where the only thing she can taste is chocolate and beer. Following that, the whole relationship she had between herself and her colleague, Ito was extremely vague and I had no idea who she was talking to when she received the phone call.
Overall the storyline was hard to follow and pretty senseless. There are so many movies out there that are so much deeper and creative then this. I would suggest something like 'ookami kodomo no ame to yuki' or 'bakemono no ko' or even 'a silent voice' that has so much more meaning, and character development compared to this movie.

I watched this movie based on its sheer praise alone, and I can’t see what the fuss is about. To put it bluntly, it didn’t feel like anything happened. The two characters start getting some characterization, but never got as interesting as I hoped. Likewise, there’s not much of a story beyond showing their relationship and what they mean to each other, which obviously isn’t very compelling if they aren’t interesting. There are a few developments that caught my interest, especially some sadder moments…but only for a little bit because the movie ended without fleshing them out. It definitely had potential if it either used ... its time better (less time on environmental shots?) or was longer, but it ended up amounting to very little and I left it feeling nothing. The ending being nonsensical didn’t help.

Perhaps the movie required me to make even deeper inferences to fully understand and appreciate it? Even so, a story should at least be entertaining without needing to solve its themes or characters’ motives. The Garden of Words sadly isn’t.

The silver lining is that this movie is absolutely gorgeous—maybe the prettiest media I’ve ever seen. If you want eye candy, especially for rain, then you will not be disappointed. It also has a few moments that are simply pleasant.

There was nothing I hated in The Garden of Words, but I don’t think there’s purpose in spending 46 minutes watching something without appreciable substance, no matter how beautiful it looks.

After watching the likes of Kimi No Na Wa, I find it hard to believe that these two films stem from the same seed (as long as you ignore the trademark Shinkai artwork of course).

I dived into this expecting a torrent of emotions, carried by a wave of gorgeous visuals, but what I got instead was merely the latter. And that too, coupled with its own flaws or two. There's absolutely no denying the sheer attention to detail paid to the art direction and imagery here; in fact, I'd be lying if I said there weren't a few moments that had me wanting to capture ... a shot as my wallpaper. But turn a blind eye to that scenery and what you're left with are some bland, unmemorable cardboard characters.

And I say that both in terms of the physical and the emotional.

Aside from their insipid, simplistic features, there's just something about this style of character design that fails to strike a chord within me. I can think of more than a few anime from even the 90's that I'd prize over this instead, but hey, that's simply a matter of personal preference. The greater problem, however, lies in the fact that this insipid feeling transcends deeper into their personalities as well.

You see, I'm an extremely fiction-sensitive person. By that, I mean that when it comes to real life, I'm like a brick of soulless stone, but the moment you bring in an emotional story with some fictional characters, that brick of stone can turn into a sniffling mess of tears within minutes— as long as there's some powerful music to boot too. Now, Kotonoha no Niwa has beautiful art AND beautiful music on its side, yet I still felt nothing. Nada, zero, zilch.

Trust me, I was more shocked than you might be. Because I truly expected this to be added to the list of movies that hit me right in da feelz™. Yet, as the seconds turned to minutes while I watched this, I could only sit there endlessly waiting for it to hit. When I go back and think over it, I realize that the fault lies in the story— or lack thereof shall I say.

Starting off strong, with an interesting look at life and dreams and what it's like to feel trapped at a standstill while the world around you goes on, I'm afraid the film itself came to its own sudden halt after the first 10-15 minutes or so. After that, as the "story" unraveled, it became abundantly clear that there was no real point to be found. Here is a boy that yearns to be a shoemaker and here is a woman that struggles to find her role in life. They meet (a few times), they talk (a little), they bond (apparently), they fall out (for a wee bit) and WHOOP-DE-DOO they find new meaning to life. I just wasn't buying it.

Granted, there's only 45 minutes worth of screen time, but it's not the lack of dialogue or plot I find unsettling. Oh no, Hotarubi no Mori e proved to me that far more can be spoken with visuals than with words. But Kotonoha no Niwa tries to sell more than it's got and it tops its dull cake with a ridiculously over the top climax that sprouts from seemingly nothing. WHY, oh mysterious woman, did these encounters impact your life to the extent that it saved you? WHY are you suddenly bawling your eyes out like your pet kitten just died? WHY am I expected to give two craps about any of this when I know nothing about you (besides you having some kind of random taste disorder that got miraculously solved by this kid's not-so-miraculous cooking)?

Sigh. Guess I'll never know.

What I saw: an attempt at deep symbolism and meaning through an unexpected relationship in a time of need.
What I really saw: little more than a contrived work of beautiful art shadowed by its lackluster message and characters.
What I felt: nothing.

For the life of me, I cannot understand all of the positive reviews for this movie. It feels as though everyone was captivated by how pretty the movie is (which is understandable) and completely managed to ignore the numerous MAJOR issues with this movie.

To get the good out of the way: The movie is gorgeous, the sound design is phenomenal, the pacing is superb, and the characters are well acted. If all you care about in a movie is its wallpaper and ambient noise potential, you will love The Garden of Words.

If you care about story, themes, and characters, then keep reading for the bad. ... The largest and most glaring issue is the age gap of the characters. This is a romance story of unrequited/impossible love between a fifteen year old CHILD and a 27 year old WOMAN. There is no world in which these two characters falling for each other is acceptable or should be celebrated. The review from another user that excused this by referring to Akizuki as "wise beyond his years" made me want to vomit. This is a movie that non-critically presents a relationship between a mid-puberty child with a near 30 year old and expects you to root for them.

Compounding on how disgusting the basic premise of this movie is, there is absolutely zero reason for this movie to have the specific ages that were chosen or the specific age gap. For the life of me, I cannot comprehend why Makoto Shinkai just HAD to choose a high school Freshman and a 27 year old. Why couldn't he have been a senior? Why not a college student stuck in a rut? Why couldn't Yukino have been younger, like a recent college grad or someone finishing her degree? There's no reason for the age gap to have been almost as big as Akizuki's current age.

If you like the movie, fine. If all you care about is pretty pictures, cool. If you care about not wanting to be expected to support a predatory and pedophiliac relationship, then pass on this terrible film.

"The Garden of Words" is another work by Makoto Shinkai, who brought us "5 Centimeters Per Second." Prepare for his signature stunning visuals and a bittersweet romance with some serious flaws.

Takao is a 15 year old high school student with aspiration of becoming a shoemaker. He skips school on rainy days to sketch shoes in a traditional- style Japanese garden. On one such rainy day, he meets Yukino, an older woman, who appears to be seeking shelter from the world in the garden. Every rainy day thereafter, the two find themselves in each others' company in the garden.

This movie was seriously appalling to ... me. I searched out reviews to see if others had had the same reaction--and I think I'm alone. I will try to explain some of my reasoning.

Takao is enthralled by this women because she represents "the mystery of adulthood and the working world." Huh? Yukino is skipping work almost daily and drinking beer in a park. She is clearly struggling with personal demons and is just plain miserable. Is this Takao's vision of adulthood? or was this Shinkai's way of demonstrating Takao's immaturity?

Without revealing spoilers, Yukino has modelled with Takao the event that brought her grief in the first place. Does no one see the irony in that situation?

What the film does accomplish is Shinkai's distinctive awe inspiring visuals and score. The voice acting is impeccable, especially in the climax. The conversation and inner dialogue is poetic at times, but mostly very realistic. There is a lot of symbolism in the rain, the garden and the shoes which is thought provoking.

While having flawless execution this story falls short in the underlying premise. It is a pretty package for a cheap gift.

The writer's artsy self-insert fantasy (and barely disguised foot fetish and romance pedophilia of a teacher with a student). She's 27. MC is 15, a first-year in HS yet looks older even according to dialogue and is working and worrying about becoming a shoemaker and acting like an adult and taking placement exams... it sounds like they wrote nearly an 18 year old in his last year of HS worrying about going into a trade school and a future career as a shoemaker, and then decided to make him 15 instead despite every reason not to because they wanted pedophilia.
This is a lame version of ... To the Forest of Firefly Lights.
There is so much authorial vomit, exposition-dumping self-narration of the MC's inner thoughts by having the MC's voice actor read off extremely clunky and unnatural lines of prose like an audiobook.
This is a fundamental failure of storytelling:
(There are only 2 characters in this movie, ignoring a few extremely brief mostly one-off noncharacters like the brother, the mother, and the bullies) The 2 characters spend entire montages of dates together hanging out, cheaply skipping the hard part of actually having the characters interact meaningfully, neither one ever actually says anything much to the other despite the plot both insisting that they now love each other and that their time together was life-affirming and the most meaningful thing ever etc, while at the same time revealing that they practically don't know anything about each other because they in fact didn't really say much of anything in all that time and in fact it becomes an absurd plot point that the teacher practically never told the MC anything. It wants to have its cake and eat it too but is too lazy even to buy a generic one let alone bake one. Ultimately their interaction is a series of empty scenes that say nothing meaningful elevated artificially in an impossible way because actually they've barely spoken to each other both in the audience's pov and in universe.
The ending is extremely forced (by absurd contrivance he's the only one who doesn't know about her) and comes across like the author self-inserting to play out some fantasy argument with an ex because of his romantic hangups. And the ending itself is mostly dumb and renders the nonstory pointless.
The ending is self contradictory with many of its themes: (vague spoilerish)
She was stuck day drinking there unable to move, but now actually that was her walking and he already saved her without doing anything. For some reason the solution to her problem that stemmed from being accused of pedophilia towards her student was to... engage in pedophilia with her student... sacrificing the story and themes in favor of pedophilia...
MC was trying to save her, (then immediately gave up and was an asshole when she rejected him) yet instead of having him go back for her (being mature as every aspect of his coming of age story was meant to be moving towards), she runs after him... after rejecting him... despite that being pedophilia... because romancing a child is her finally moving forward as an adult (now, as opposed to her claim that she already had)... despite that going against exactly her core trauma in her subplot in the story which caused her to be stuck... It just feels like the author wants someone else to throw themselves at him rather than work for it himself (because this is a self insert) (she's a cardboard cutout of a manic pixie dreamboat for MC to sail away on). (And they only let her sob out 3 little sentences in response to his big angry monologue reveal that part of her passivity issue is she doesn't talk and just listens, 0 character growth, but she says he saved her so plz ignore contradictory show while they tell you how it be).
Literally all he had to do was have MC come back in after she's already crying and thus already shown her true feelings, he runs to her (rising crescendo) they embrace, the end, epilogue. Problem solved, he came onto her, she did nothing; themes intact, actual story, clap clap. But no. Absurd and heavyhanded unsubtle dialogue sperg instead along with cloying melodrama and hamfisted tone-deaf symbolism and messages.
And that half-assed excuse for resolving the 'making her a pair of shoes' plot point was as trash as the shoes themselves; she wasn't even there, he's literally just showing it off to no one for the audience's benefit while self-narrating more audiobook.
There may have been the slightest allusion to her having miscarried a child from her implied prior relationship with a coworker as another reason why she's single/sad/stuck (and wondering if she'll ever be able to _ be a mother) and reason why seeing the child MC means so much to/heals her with their mother/child relationship parallels filling the role each one lacks, but I'm reaching at breadcrumbs here and probably just writing the story myself way beyond the low effort the writer put in.
It does have high budget art though so "10/10, I like it when the pretty colors go by."

Porn for children, and bait for visual artists, a story which doesn't tell itself, and gives the viewer a story that sounds like It makes sense but really just doesn't add up.

On the surface, The Garden of Words looks like the typical Shoujo anime, based on either romance or drama, given by the visuals and name. The Garden of Words is a short movie which focuses it's attention on a teacher, who in distress, is forced into a horrible situation with her job which causes he to fail to show up to school sometimes and to sit at the park, we she also meets a ... student who chooses to not show up to class periodically. The meaning behind these coincidences is foreshadow, the purpose of the movie is to show the difficulty of a relationship between 2 people, where their entire situation relies on coincidences and differences, the difference between the 2 is large, but they overlook this and continue getting along, with the boy inevitably falling in love with the teacher.

That is about all positive I could get from this, enduring a re-watch of this movie, I have come to the final conclusion that this anime just makes pretty much no sense, I found it overwhelmingly difficult to find any sort of attraction to these characters or to establish a connection between the characters, while I still see purpose behind the actions of characters in the movie, I find it hard to really sympathize with the characters or feel any grief for them when something goes wrong or they mess up, I actually found myself getting kind of angry over the stupidity and monotony of the movie and the actions made to build plot.
The ending was also really unsatisfying, with the conclusion I found myself rather upset, and like the last 45 minutes of the movie were just for nothing, the characters wouldn't have been better off or worse if what happened in the movie did or did not happen, if they hadn't met, nothing would change, aside from maybe the girl being like, slightly more knowledgeable, and also maybe the boy wouldn't have been beaten up, though I can appreciate that this show steps out of the comfort zone of most Shoujo's, it just doesn't do it for me.

This movie I would only recommend to people who don't analyze movies, and just enjoy them for what they are, I can almost guarantee this movie would be a 7 or 8 for me if I didn't always seek meaning and purpose with every detail in everything I watch, The Garden of Words is heavily flawed, and oscar-bait.

While I wasn't a fan of The Garden of Words at all, I'll give credit where credit is due, and there were definitely a couple of aspects to this that I appreciated a lot. The big one was the way Makoto Shinkai seemed to have intentionally keep things very understated, keeping away from having anything particularly huge happening around the main characters. This made this a very cohesive and character driven experience devoid of any superfluous elements to drag things out and distract from the core of the story. I also found the visuals to be gorgeous for the most part, particularly in the background ... scenery, which felt rich in colour and effectively created some very powerful atmosphere that was the perfect blend of isolated and comfortable. The first 5 minutes or so were also pretty interesting in the way it seemed to have set things up to delve into the themes of feeling completely out of your depth and simply doing your best to get through it all, with Takao's inner monologue about having so many new experiences that would seem commonplace to some further reinforcing this.

Unfortunately that's where the praise ends from me because despite this promise I really did not like this in so many different ways. The central romance ends up failing right off the bat by having this relationship that's taken super seriously and dramatically be a 15 year old and a 27 year old teacher. This essentially meant that if the story itself wasn't handled with a painstaking amount of nuance or at least framed in such a way that it was clearly wrong and uncomfortable, then it was not going to work due to constantly coming back to this thought of "you know that there's a 13 year age gap here right?" Unfortunately, the story has no real nuance to it and instead plays out like a generic soap opera-esque anime romance. To make things worse is the fact that it feels like the interactions and growing relationships between the two is basically all this movie focuses on, which doesn't end up working too well when these are flatly written strips of cardboard with some of the most boring and one-note tropes associated with them. The main character doesn't have any personality to him other than this broad stroke statement of having a passion and being disinterested with what's expected of him, and loving Yukino. This just makes him really unlikeable and also has some truly asinine plot contrivances associated with it (namely somehow not realising that Yukino taught at his school because "he's just so lost in his own world").

At the end of the day this feels like a substanceless art showcase that just happens to have a sappy drama attached to it and uncomfortable interactions between a couple of people with a huge age gap. The promise that this film showed ends up feeling horribly squandered and it's really just a shame. As alluded to throughout I don't even think that fixing the age disparity would have made me enjoy this much more, since the writing itself also played a huge part in this falling flat and it would have taken a lot to have gotten me to buy the dramatic hug with generic rock music being played in the background.

Wow! .... WOW !! lol
So... The characters don't really go through any kind of growth, and there's no meaningful coherent struggle that they undergo together... it's clear they each have their issues, but their paths intersect physically. The character's own dialogue acknowledges that they're lacking a connection.... and this is an interesting route to take, right? Overall I actually really enjoyed the premise of this plot.
.... Maybe it's just me and my paranoid ass, but the tone and delivery of this story reeks of Stockholm Syndrome. I can.. maybe? kinda see..? where Shinkai is coming from.. but considering that he wrote the screenplay and ... he did the boards, and he directed this film, why did it come out so... weak?
A LOT of this film is monologues. FROM BOTH SIDES of the love interest. The last monologue of the movie was the only monologue that really caught my interest, but it was at a moment of peak conflict I just .. I understand where it is coming from, but the main character just goes from 0-100, and .. and.. idk it's a little unhinged, and then they end the movie on that note. .... ?? Like what.. is.. is there more?

What does this movie have to offer? Monologues and instrumental piano and STUNNING art of shining leaves and gushing water. Yall if u like looking, LOOK. AT. THIS. MOVIE! But if you want to enjoy a plot, if you want to see any of the following: character development, meaningful relationship development or, idk, a moral lesson to not invite kids into your home, or some kind of encouragement to children who are suffering in the shadow of an alcoholic or otherwise nonpresent parent, YOU WILL NOT GET IT HERE!!!! I had a good laugh tho! (intoxication recommended)

Suggestions for Shinkai (cuz im arrogant like that)
This work was beautiful, visually, I can really see your vision for a romantic hook and draw-in, we've really captured this protagonist at his most vulnerable.... But you've ended the story at that point? How distasteful, you've left this teenage boy to die on this cross, and you want to cash in on it..
Maybe your intention wasn't the plot, that's fine too. Vibes are really in fashion! In that case, please PLEASE do not give your male lead a one sided monologue berating your female lead about how all the stress he's experiencing is her fault! Yes, she is abusing him, No that does not mean that this fight is beautiful and meaningful to their relationship.... I mean... it better not be!!! oh my gawwdd
A coming of age story can be written in so many other ways! This kid deserves a better resolution than this! Abuse is wrong! The female lead deserves a better ending too! Maybe this movie just opened too many cans ... It was only 46 minutes long after all...

02/10 "he's like a japanese quentin tarantino" - me, today

A vapid portrayal of forbidden love and loneliness, paired with hollow imagery and feet for some reason.

You've gotta love Shinkai and his obsession with establishing shots. If "Your Name" was any indication that he lacks the skill of directing meaningful imagery, then "Garden of Words" is a full on confession that he absolutely has no idea what he's doing. His writing in Your Name was completely absurd and out of touch, but here it's just non-existent.

There's a lingering feeling of chronic loneliness that follows our two main characters. The rain itself symbolizes loneliness. The irony of the film is that these characters only seem to ... find each other's company during the rain. The problem arises when the film has no idea how to develop these ideas on screen. Even if this is an understated, character-driven narrative, there always has to be some sort of conclusion or a culmination of sorts. The closest thing to a climax is that the guy makes her a shoe in the end, which he doesn't even give her.

This is Shinkai at his most amateur and aimless. The final scene is supposedly an emotionally charged one, but the lack of any proper build-up, the sappy nature of Shinkai's writing, and the sudden melancholic soundtrack just make it one of the most unintentionally funny/annoying scenes I've seen in an anime. ("you saved me" ugh just kill me please). The girl (I can never remember any of Shinkai's characters) never has a proper arc and neither does the guy. We're just left at the end with a brief understanding of their situations. The girl has moved back to her home town and is teaching again, and the guy is still trying to make shoes. We end up exactly where we started. There's no progression at all. There is a hint that the guy will try and meet her again once he learns to walk, but what's stopping Shinkai from actually showing emotional growth rather than implying it? This is such a poor excuse for the "audience creates their own meaning" situation.

The only reason why I would consider this above Your Name is because it's short and isn't as much of a torture to sit through. There's also the questionable morality that Shinkai depicts in a 27 year old teacher and a 15 year old boy falling in love with each other. Of course, you could argue that they don't sleep together, so it isn't as bad, but still, what's the idea behind including this? If the main idea is about these characters finding each other and giving comfort during their low times, why include romantic elements? If he wanted to show how love comes unexpectedly and in different shapes, sometimes outside of societal norms, why not pursue it further instead of giving it a half-baked conclusion?

The visuals are stunning. There are so many random shots of rain, skyscrapers piercing the skies, trees and lakes greener than green, people cutting up vegetables, and SO MUCH GREEN. Every shot is either of Tokyo drenched in rain or a 4K resolution shot of someone's feet. The visuals quite literally overshadow the characters, which only take up about 30% of the screen time. Aside from the animation, what Shinkai manages to capture so well are the little details of living alone. When you're up past midnight studying and the only company you have is the table lamp. For food, preparing cheap meals like ramen or rice is the go-to. Commuting the distance by train and noticing how someone distinctly smells. It's these moments where Shinkai shines. Not the overt, mawkish romance. He has a perceptive understanding of how normal people live from day to day, especially those in isolation. His worlds are a mimicry of reality, but obviously heightened. Unfortunately, inanimate objects feel more real and believable than actual characters in Shinkai's works.

Too bad nothing actually means anything in this 45-minute trailer of a film.

2/10

The animation and music in The Garden of Words is stunning, and I don't expect any less from Makoto Shinkai, whose other works include Your Name and Weathering With You. That being said, the storyline is not moving to me. I understand that young teenagers do develop crushes on older folks, but I found the whole close relationship between a 15-year old and 27-year-old teacher deeply unsettling. Even though it's not taken over the line, the focal relationship of this film is creepy to me (and probably to many people). For that reason, I cannot rate this movie higher than a 4.

watching kotonha no niwa is like meeting the most drop-dead gorgeous stranger ever, then having bad, wooden sex that lasts like 2 minutes. There is no denying that the art of this movie is incredible, shading, animation, it is visually flawless. HOWEVER the content is deeply irritating. Garden of Words is filled with one dimensional, underdeveloped characters, and a story line which, although had potential, left me feeling genuinely angry. If Garden of Words wasdeveloped into a feature length movie, it might actually have been really enjoyable. But instead, we are given two characters which there is no time to form emotional attachment to. For ... example, the illness that the chick has (legit cant even remember character names lol) was so convineient and honestly pointless. One second she cant taste, then she cant breathe but cn taste and at one point she can barely walk? keep in mind these symptoms arent shown, just blatantly pushed on the audience. The only thing that indicated that she was 'sick' wasthe fact that she ate chocolate and beer, because god forbid shes just a bit unladylike for no reason. the male MC is actually a pretty interesting character, the shoe concept is actually pretty unique, but his emotional pathway literally makes no sense. he (a 15 year old) confesses his love to the grown-ass woman, then 5 seconds later hes spouting off about how much he hates her?? it just makes no sense. Honestly the impression I got was that the animators spent so much time making it pretty, that they couldnt be bothered to finish the last half of the movie, so they just drag and dropped the last scene and said 'eh good enough'. Another thing i want to mention is the sheer amount of filler scenes. Rather than spending time developing characters, there is probably around 8 minutes over the course of the movie that only serves the purpose of flexing the artwork. The saddest part is, it actually worked.

TLDR: once you look past the art, garden of words gave me some of the most pinful blue balls in anime history. very overhyped

Amazing visuals, disappointing story

This 40 minute work hooked me on amazing visuals, especially the backgrounds, but left me immensely dissatisfied with an underdeveloped story. I can tell the creators were trying to make an emotional story but failed to flesh it out enough to actually have any impact. The plot feels half baked and I don't just mean it was simple. The best analogy I can make is to a McDonalds burger, it looks good, tastes okay, but leaves your stomach feeling empty. The OST is good but not great, not much else to say.

All I can say is that it’s really not worth watching ... unless you want to see the visuals.

Makoto Shinkai's movies have all been a kind of anti-icebergs—always maximalist but never, ever thoughtful under the surface—and The Garden Of Words abuses its short runtime to say as little as possible about basically every subject it tries to tackle. At this point I have to conclude that Shinkai is afraid to have his artistic choices ever convey any kind of meaningful subtext, past like rain = sad and sunshine = happy. His ideal moviegoing experience seems to be a vacant smile held throughout as you watch the pretty powerpoint. I think I finally understand what Scorsese was talking about when he made the distinction ... between movies and cinema; if any movie feels like a theme park ride it‘s this one. Nothing but baby brain symbolism and manufactured, superficial story beats.

I have never seen such a FORCED DRAMA before, this takes all the awards.


*Spoilers*
So we have a Takao who is a student that loves designing shoes, one rainy day he mets Yukino in a garden and without even talking he decides to start skipping classes and going to met her without saying even a word to her.
They eventually start a conversation, start getting along.

Then we know Yukino is woman that finds herself lost/incomplete in life (we don't know why tbh but she is clearly sad and frustrated) then by art of magic she ends up being one of the school teachers of Takao, yes, ... even ALL the students in that school knew her except for him, yes, the same school.

What is up next is more forced drama of him telling her DAISUKI and she rejecting him but then WOW she suddenly realises and goes after him like every fucking cliche movie ever but WAIT he is still there and he now starts giving a monologue about his failure in life and saying he hates her?

By this point the forced drama cringle was too much to handle but then Yukino jumps into his arms and starts crying.

The end
----------------------

This movie was insulting, im not giving a 1 because i appreciate the works of the animators who had to work in this trash.

When I was watching this anime, I felt like I was watching a summer day in my (boring) life.
This anime has nothing wow, but let's talk a little

1. Characters
Let's be serious, does anyone else remember a character from this anime besides the boy and that girl?? Oh and even if you remember, they were too boring, even the two protagonists, they didn't have anything special

2.Too short
How can an anime of less than 40 minutes be good? There are anime movies of at least a grade 11, but this one is too bad

3.Hype
... (Spoilers alert)
How can you be hype to a character like that guy, who all he does is give him a pair of slippers, bro nobody cares, there was no hype at all when he offered him the pair of slippers, but it should have been at least a little hype

The only ok thing was the ending, maybe a grade of 7 maximum

Oh my god. I’m so mad rn. I can’t believe Makoto-sama did his own manga dirty with this anime. After finishing the movie, I knew that something was missing from the story, because I remembered from the manga that the two main characters had much deeper conversations than portrayed in the short movie. I was sure of this after I reread the manga.

The only thing I liked from the anime that the manga couldn't provide was the atmosphere. It was pensive with the sound of rain and slow music.

Overall, a huge disappointment and injustice to the manga. For the record the manga was ... pretty good. 4/10