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Ever since I got into anime (about the beginning of this year), your name had always been a name I had heard. In the comments of a Reddit post or a youtube video, it was everywhere. Everyone said that it was amazing, and I had heard that it beat spirited away as the number one highest grossing anime film, with 358 million dollars worldwide. I knew I needed to watch it, but it wasn’t until one instance that my interest got to the level where I wanted to buy the DVD as fast as possible.
In music class one day, our task was to make a cover of a song. But the problem was that I couldn’t make a cover if I knew how to play it already, but every song I was interested in playing on the piano, I had already started playing. I wasn’t sure what to do one of, so I searched for piano synthesias on youtube. It was a way to learn piano song quite quickly if you knew what you were doing. I scrolled for a while but never found anything, until I saw the synthesia for Sparkle. I listened to it, and it was perfect. I found the music video for the soundtrack, and I fell in love with it. The animation, the music, it was all perfect. I needed to see the movie, now that I had seen a demo of it. So a short time after that I bought the DVD an when it came I waited until the weekend when I could watch it. When Friday finally came and I watched the movie, I was utterly amazed at everything. The animation, the music (that I hadn’t heard before), the story and the movie in general. It gave me a feeling that I hadn’t felt before, or ever since. It was the first movie I was sad that I couldn’t watch for the first time again. Since then I have seen the movie 5 times, and my opinion has changed a tiny bit every time. But now the fifth time, I think I got an opinion on the movie.
Before watching the movie I already knew that the music was going to be amazing. I only knew one song, yes, but the impression I got from it was that the band worked really hard on the OST, and you can tell. This soundtrack is honestly my favorite one ever. I think there were two songs in the entire OST that I didn’t like, the rest were all amazing. And to think that only one band worked on the OST is hard to believe. But something I didn’t expect was how the animation felt like a music video for the soundtrack (can’t take credit for that, Gigguk was the one that pointed it out). I heard that Shinkai changed the storyboard so that the music would fit in with the animation better, and you can tell. The songs would start at the perfect moment, it would change with the animation and stop when the animation needed it to be. Very few movies or shows do this, or at least so that you can tell.
Speaking of animation, oh man was it good. Other than how good it fit in with the music, it was just amazing in general. It felt like every shot could be a background. There was no money saving so they could spend more on other scenes, cause every shot was as detailed as the other. It never took you out of the world, cause it put you into it. And even compared to other Shinkai movie, I still think this one was the best. Cause it felt like they could show the viewer what they could do with the ”fantasy” (I don’t know if I should call it that, but anyway) elements. It also had some very recognizable character designs, where you can remember very small side-characters just from their design. They showed a lot of character. The main characters fit in with the time period and location. Mitsuha looks like a person who lives outside of the city, and Taki looks like the opposite. The side-characters also have great designs and all look unique and show characters. And in the end, when they show the characters 5 years later, you can see how the character development changes how they look. Mitsuha and Taki both look more serious and modern, as do the other side-characters.
Now to the story. I found this concept to be very unique, something I haven’t seen before. That two people change their lifes every other day. That might seem like something forgettable, but the way they use the concept, I found really fascinating. How they don’t try to find out why it’s happening but keep it a mystery. That way, the movie can spawn a conversation with more subjects, which is always good. They touch a little on the people who got the same experiences, but nothing more.
I also like how the experiences change the characters where you really see the differences, and even in the end, there’s still a lot of change. That’s something that the movie did really well, using the characters in an interesting way. Cause we get to see how they live a life that contradicts their own one. So you get to see, for example, Mitsuha seeing how stressful it is for Taki who works for a restaurant, something she kind of asked for the day before. But after we get to learn about the characters, the more serious side of the movie begins. And something the movie does right is that they don’t change tone too fast, but slow so that the tones doesn't clash. So they start by doing something that makes the viewer curious, and when we learn what happened, that’s where the movie gets serious.
The movie also has a lot of rewatchability. Cause even though you already know what’s going to happen, that’s why it’s fun to rewatch, cause there are so many hints of what’s going to happen that you don’t see at first. Like Yotsuha asking why her grandma still haven’t gotten over what their father did before we know what he did. That way, the dialogue feels way more realistic.
Yes, there are things that I wasn’t a huge fan of. The second scene was a little confusing, the characters reaction to Taki or Mitsuha not knowing what happened the day before were a little mild sometimes (but most times it felt really realistic), some exposition scene that could have been solved through visuals and some out-of-character moments. But I feel like the movie makes up for that by having so many details that make the story so much interesting and consistent.
At the end of the day, you can think whatever you want about this movie. I have seen videos of people hating the movie, and they had good points. But to me, this is the movie I find to be the closest to perfection I have ever seen, and it is the reason why I have seen it so many times. If you haven’t seen it yet, please do. Have a great day
