An average story loaded with amazing art.

Disclaimer and Initial comments

This review will obvious contain some spoilers, so just a forewarning before you start reading, expect that some plot points will be revealed in this review. If you have already watched it, then here is my opinion, feel free to take my thoughts/analysis as you like!

I'm late to this party, watching this piece all the way in February of 2021. I want to start off by saying that this movie is unfortunately plagued with the fact that it has a very large number of people who treat this movie as though it is on par with some of the greatest theatrical pieces produced by humanity. This of course is not at all true, but it is clear to me that this work does deserve a lot of praise for things it did well.

Story and Characters

To start off, the story that Makoto Shinkai wrote was extremely simplistic, mostly focusing with time manipulation, overcoming fate, and most importantly a coming-of-age tale about a male and a female teen who are constantly swapping bodies. Now, there is really nothing wrong with a simple plot, there have been many stories with a simple premise that are considered classics today. However, this story does not stand that test. The main characters are extremely simplistic, with not much development shown in either. The side characters are not at all deep, more-so just pretty faces that help carry the plot. This is extremely disappointing, because there are very obviously hints of interesting backstories for specifically Mitsuha Miyamizu and some of her family and friends.

This may not seem like a huge issue, since the work seems to be more of a genre fiction piece rather than a work of literary fiction, however it becomes somewhat jarring, most notably with the flashbacks for events occurring in Mitsuha's life, which simply has a huge allusion to with almost no further explanation. Her relationship with her father is never really explored besides this quick scene where our male lead, Taki Tachibana, sees after consuming Sake in a shrine.

As I stated earlier, side characters do not feel alive at all either, many of them seem to just go with the flow established by the plot and leads without much questioning. An excellent example of such is Mitsuha's grandmother, who basically plays the whole body switching dream experience as something that is no big deal since she and her daughter experienced it to. It is not at all explored by the story or characters and is just accepted as something that happens because the flow of time just carries on.

The pacing of the story is perfect, I never felt as though the plot itself was blatantly being rushed at any means. If it was up to myself however, I believe that adding another 30 minutes or so could have fixed many issues I had with the depth of characters and also their interactions with one another. However, it is clear that the studio used all the money they could in the development, and asking for another 30ish minutes would have been a lot.

Despite my pretty negative comments concerning the topic of the story and its characters, I did actually care for the main characters, and I was satisfied with the resolution, even if it was a little obvious for pretty much any human who read/watched anything. If this was a book/manga however, I don't think that this work as good as it was to me watching it, because of the lack of depth in both its characters and its plot.

Animation and Sound

To sum this up in a simple manner. This movie is literally eye candy. It is clear that Comix Wave Studios understand how to play to their strengths with the direction of the visual aspect of the film. This artistic direction was able to quickly and efficiently establish the tone as well as the mood for this movie, and this art stayed consistent from the first scene to the very last.

The art did an excellent job of keeping me engaged and also really did a good job to develop the scenes that were meant to be emotional to feel much more emotional. While I never found myself to the point of actual tears, I did feel my heart sink and jump when the art really called for the viewer to experience that. It is clear to me that my brain was able to accept the flaws solely because of the awesome artistic achievements made by the studio for this story.

Sound is not something I am versed with, all I can say is that it is a huge positive for me. The music was absolutely amazing and is worth a re-listen on its own because of the love and care that actually went into it. The music always fit in with the scene it was being played in and it never dominated a scene too much.

Enjoyment

Simply awesome. It may be a little surprising that I actually loved this movie despite my seemingly negative opinions on this work, but I actually thought that this film was definitely worth my time, and I can definitely see myself showing friends this movie and even sitting down and watching it again some other time. The art was awesome and with an average story it really did catch my imagination and also really did keep me emotionally invested from beginning to end. As with most other works, there were clear flaws, but that is completely normal and not at all something that blatantly broke my immersion/investment.

Final comments

Despite my many criticisms, I still enjoyed watching the film a lot. I felt invested in it the whole way through, and I thought that despite its shortcomings, it was still a very lovable work. I would totally recommend this to anyone who has not watched it yet, it is an experience that I think is definitely at the very least positive and at best absolutely heartwarming and beautiful. Not at all life-changing or humbling like some seem to claim, but it is definitely a pleasant experience for the hour and a half runtime.

If this was a book, I do not think it would have been half as good as I made it out to be. What saves works, such as this one, is the fact that there is a blatantly visual aspect of the film, making it much easier to accept the flaws. Without the visual aspect, I really think I would have genuinely been disappointed with the work due to the fact that the characters and story is nothing to get excited for.

Thank you for reading my review, hopefully it helped add to the discourse and maybe helped you develop your own opinions. Feel free to message me if you want to share any comments or whatnot, I am happy to read other interpretations/opinions.