Before getting down to my gripes, I’d like to go in depth with the one thing I really loved. The animation. It’s spectacular. I know I say that about almost everything this man Directs, but even more so with this one than the others. I was hard pressed to believe it really could get much better than 5 Centimeters per Second, but it did.
I mean have you honestly ever seen a cup of coffee or a pencil on a notebook look so good? The visuals really set the tone, with it beautifully displaying these rainy days to the point where I was getting the chills. I can honestly and wholeheartedly say It’s easily in the top 5 of the best looking animation that I’ve seen. Not even limiting it to anime, in the entirety of animation as a medium it’s pretty high up there. Those awe-inspiring panning shots were unbelievable. Garden of Words proves that use of CG in anime is by no means a bad thing. It perfectly blends in, to the point it was barely noticeable, and allowed for some really incredible scenes that most likely wouldn’t have been possible without it.
I watched this movie with a friend, and the one thing we kept saying aloud over and over again was “Man the animation though…” I could write page upon page but the only real way to appreciate it is to watch it for yourself and ascertain what you can from the visuals you’re seeing now.
Sadly, I don’t think the story does the art justice at all. Voices of a Distant Star managed to tell a much more complete and satisfying story in but half the time that Garden of Words had which bothers me more than anything. Shall we go over the basic premise and I’ll point out a couple flaws that I had right off the bat?
Takoa Akizuki, a 15 year old, just keep that number in mind for now, is training himself to become a shoemaker, skips out on school one rainy day and is sketching shoes in a garden. There he meets the mysterious woman Yukari Yukino. Without ever arranging to meet, they meet again and again at that garden, but only on rainy days, and their bond gradually grows. Sound like a nice setup, no? Let me point out the number one flaw.
How old do you think Yukari is? 15? 17? 20? She is 27. TWENTY SEVEN. I don’t care if it’s a number, or the fact that they’re both drawn to look like they both in their twenties, that fact alone makes it so hard to immerse myself in this world and feel like it’s real, when if it was someone would be calling the police.
But let’s look past that, for the sake of argument. How do the characters hold up?
Whenever I’m watching a movie or show, in order to determine how much I really care about these people I ask myself a simple question: “If this person died right now, even if it was presented dramatically, would I really care?” And I can honestly say that, for Garden of Words, the answer is no. Even with 5 Centimeters a Second I would’ve felt sad, but for Garden of Words I really have to say not in the slightest. It’s not that I didn’t like these characters to some extent, but they felt very superficial. There was no depth.
Let me give an example: You’d imagine that’d they show us a fair amount of Yukari and Takoa’s interactions in the gardens, right? So we can see how their relationship develops and how they grow closer, along with getting to know them individually better, right? Nope. Almost all of it is quickly glossed over in a montage-like sequence. It almost feels like Shinkai wanted to make this movie with the explicit purpose of making a pretty movie, because so much time is spent on these wonderful panning and still shots of the environment, in favor of actual character development.
The thing is, it felt like there was more. I would say that it’d benefit from a extended length, but for the 45 minutes they did have, there was barely any character development or depth, and while there were many many plot points and reasonings hinted at, they were never fully explored. Even considering the small amount of time they had, they still could have done oh so much more. I can’t relate to or care about characters I barely know, and that is where my main problem stems from. I don’t know these characters, and for me, characters are what I tend to watch a movie or series for. The story was incredibly simple, so it’s not as if I could turn to that instead. It’s a simple romantic setup, and not much more than that. There is some symbolism, but it’s so very obvious there’s no point in even talking about it.
Despite all this, you know what? I still had fun with this film. It’s a very easy movie to watch, just the right level of engaging to not be too mentally stimulating as to require extensive focus, but just enough that you want to watch it the whole way through. Excluding the teacher-student relationship, this, much like a lot of Shinkai’s work, would be a very good example to show people at the very least, just how brilliantly beautiful animation as a medium can get. I’ll quickly comment on the music, since it didn’t really come to mind much. It was alright, though far from the best. I did notice the piano could sound a little unfitting and also a little too loud at times, but I did enjoy the ending song and overall it was fine. While we’re on the topic of audio I’ll also say that the dub, from what I watched of it, was fairly solid, though Yukari’s voice acting was a little stilted.
I rarely say something’s worth watching for the animation alone, but you know what? Garden of Words is. While the story and characters were far from perfect, the art certainly isn’t. It definitely could have been much more, but it’s worth it for the 45 minutes of beauty.
(Originally Written November 23, 2014)
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