I'll start with the technical aspects of the film first, though. The art was amazing. While there are certain scenes where CGI was obviously used, it wasn't so distracting or jarring that it looked "bad" to me. The backgrounds in particular were really lovely, high quality, and while looking somewhat computer generated, WORKED in my opinion and gave them an almost photographic, realistic feel. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I personally thought they were very nice. Something else I noticed about this movie was that animators took care to animate very subtle expression changes during certain scenes!
Now, as far as the writing goes, I'm a firm believer in Mari Okada as one of those writers who, when she misses, misses badly. But when she hits the mark, her work really shines. While Her Blue Sky wasn't AMAZING for me overall, something I really appreciate about the film is the realism of its characters.
This obviously varies between characters (see: Shinno still reads as very anime-), and it's a matter of opinion, but Aoi in particular felt like a teenage girl: when confronted by a difficult choice regarding her first love and her love for her sister, the answer to me, as an adult, was obvious -- but she didn't know what to do. It's a moment that's easily dismissible as "this protagonist is really stupid, huh?" but to me, that really communicated that she was still very much a child, someone who wasn't grown up enough to see what the "right" decision would be easily.
The same goes for characters like Masamichi, who could have very well been villainized for the drama, but read as an adult -- which is what he is. The characters all function and act their age in my opinion, which is very rare to see in anime or even dramas in general.
Some may dislike the ending -- it doesn't end "cleanly" (or maybe they dislike the less realistic part of it, that's understandable), but personally, I loved it. The movie didn't NEED to wrap everything up, and the way the story is told post-credits felt right to me. Anything else would have made the movie drag; it said all it needed to say, though I will concede that there were some plot points that felt abandoned by the end (the festival is made to be such a big deal, but in the end...?)
Overall, I really enjoyed this movie, I enjoyed the characters, and most of all I feel like the themes of first love, losing sight of your passion, choosing between yourself and the person you care about, etc were well presented. While I again feel like Mari Okada is very hit or miss for me, she wins this one.
(Also there's a REALLY fun rock cover of Gandhara which is worth looking up on youtube at least-)
