So I just realised while browsing Netflix that it has Makoto Shinkaiās The Garden of Words and uh
It wasnāt very good. In fact, it was pretty terrible in almost every aspect.
I think the majority of its problems stem from its short length. At a mere 45 minute run time, little time is spent properly developing the characters or narrative in any meaningful way, so most things fall apart. So many concepts are āintroducedā in a very awkward way, that being that said concepts are introduced as if weāre totally familiar with them. They arenāt naturally introduced, theyāre just a pre-existing part of the narrative that was never mentioned or hinted at before. The movie is really bad for this, with most of the relationship development being non-existent minus the characters saying how theyāve affected the other, even though nothing in the narrative actually shows said meaning. During the end scene of the movie, the male lead shouts at the female lead, telling her that he expects her to hate him, that he thinks she thinks heāll go nowhere with his silly childish dreams of being a shoemaker, just like everyone else treats him. That sheās constantly listening and never sharing parts of herself, and that he hates her for it. But like, two people in the movie even know that the male lead wants to be a shoemaker, namely his brother and the female lead, and the brotherās statement to his girlfriend about male lead being a teenager so his hobby will be short lived is the only ādiscriminationā the main character faces. Meanwhile, thereās literally no implication anywhere that the female lead would hate the male character, nor even an irrational reason you could make up for the male lead to deduce that she would. The movie is so full of statements that donāt make sense because they werenāt introduced or utilised well in the narrative. I think by far, the worst offender is the movieās main theme of ālearning to walk againā. As much as both leads say that theyāve been learning to walk again thanks to one another (not in a literal sense btw), the main male lead seems to have experienced no dilemma in the past that heād need to cope with and grow from with the help of the female lead. Meanwhile, the female lead has some past trauma or whatever, but none of it is expanded on and just leaves us confused and uninterested. Plus, male leadās significance in her recovery process, as important as the narrative wants it to seem, just isnāt. Every part of the story it tries something with, it barely develops and just pretends itās more important than it actually is. I donāt know how well that was worded, but narratively, the movie kinda sucks really badly. The characters are bland and the story is bland, and nothing is well developed. It's a film that pretends it's profound in its themes, even though the themes aren't present in the first place.
However, I did say at the start of this that almost every aspect sucked. The one aspect that was fucking incredible was the animation. This movie is absolutely gorgeous. I canāt even begin to come close to describing how stunning it is. Even though I basically just told you the film is shit, I recommend watching it anyway just to look at it. A 1/10 film that becomes like a 4/10 because of animation alone. And going up 3 whole points because of animation alone is impressive as hell.
