- Story. The story has some magical/supernatural elements and time skipping, but it’s not difficult to follow. I think there was a missed opportunity for the movie to become a thriller, due to the incremental revelations of the time skipping phenomenon and the tragedy that the two main characters try to prevent. Furthermore, there needed to be clearer development of two critical aspects for the plot: the romantic relationship between the two main characters and buy-in of several characters to engage in what is essentially domestic terrorism.
- Characters. The main characters are kind of bland. I think the supporting cast are a little more interesting. I don’t have an issue with Mitsuha’s more muted or serious personality, but she doesn’t really have more dimension when she is interacting with her friends. She is somewhat mischievous when interacting with Taki. Taki acts more serious but the audience is again told by another character, not shown, that he is supposedly hot headed. I can recall only one scene that actually depicted that part of this personality. Another character later tells us that Taki has changed, but I don’t see the point in making this statement if there was not a clear standard to compare his personality to in the first place.
- Art. Pretty lineart, gorgeous colors, great art and style direction.
- Animation. Beautiful.
- Music. The actual background music was unmemorable, but the songs with lyrics used at several points were really nice. However, I do not have an emotional connection to the songs - so they are simply pretty to me.
- Sound design. Also largely unmemorable, if not for a few well timed suzu bell chimes.
- Writing. To elaborate on what I mentioned in the Story section, the romance was really out of place to me. In fact, I think the director was aware of this which is why supporting characters had to TELL us that the one of the main characters is in love with someone else leading up to the confession. There was definitely an entire montage showing the development of a close platonic relationship. I would have preferred if it stayed that way and hinted at the start of a romance at the very end. Not only would it have made more sense, but it would have also been thematically appropriate. It wouldn’t have detracted from the plot either; you can indeed care deeply about someone without falling in love with them. There was even a scene of unconscious realization of love that I thought was stupid. Maybe instead of having a character cry and wonder about it, they could have spent that time showing them blushing at something the other character wrote to them. Even one instance of this would have been more sensible than none. I don’t buy the angle “it’s a movie, so they don’t have enough time to show development”. Yes they can. Maybe remove one of three scenes in which one of the main characters is groping boobs and replace it with actual character development. It’s not that hard!
Next, one of the main characters basically has to convince their friends to destroy public property in order to prevent the tragedy that only the main character knows is going to happen. One friend straight up says that’s a crime… and then casually goes along with it? The other friend was built up to believe in conspiracy theories, but was not provided any convincing evidence to readily agree to committing domestic terrorism and potentially damaging the reputation of his father’s company. There was even a lighthearted montage leading up to the plan.
Furthermore, I was not a fan of the cringy dialogue between Taki and Mitsuha. There is a key scene in which they are supposed to have a quirky teenager conversation highlighting their relationship. Instead, it comes off as jarring and inappropriate for the time and place, considering the tragedy is about to occur and they are bantering about groping boobs.
- Emotional impact. I laughed two times, once because something was stupid and the other time I thought something was genuinely funny. I was either neutral or negative (thinking “this is stupid/unnecessary/nonsensical") towards everything else. The movie lacked true catharsis or buildup. I think the only great cut was in the first third of the movie before the first song started playing. For the reasons discussed in the Writing section, I felt nothing during the scene that is commonly regarded as the most emotional point of the movie. The reaction that the film wanted to elicit from me was not justified.
