Version I saw: UK Bluray release
Actors: 6/10
Plot/script: 5/10
Photography/visual style: 9/10
Music/score: 6/10
Overall: 7/10
Makoto Shinkai is a master of visually stunning, quite short films that are heavy on 'feels'. He began with the astonishing achievement of single-handedly creating and animating hard sci-fi weepie 'Voices of a Distant Star' using only his own Apple Mac, and it is still a delight to watch today. Since then, he seems to have progressed fairly steadily towards more mundane settings, but his production standards have only risen.
'The Garden of Words' is a romantic drama set in modern Tokyo, featuring a schoolboy named Takao and an adult woman named Yukino who meet by coincidence in a park, when they should both have been otherwise occupied. Incidentally, they are voiced by very prominent seiyuu Miyu Irino and Kana Hanazawa, making this a fairly prestigious project.
As the story develops, we find out why each is bunking off, and a romantic element develops. This is somewhat awkward, given the age difference, but in the moment I found it no more incongruous than the fact that Takao is a straight male who aspires to become a designer of women's shoes.
The plot is incredibly slow, making the 46 minutes seem far longer. This is not helped by the incredibly sparse dialogue and lack of music, which give the viewer very little to latch onto. I wondered if there might be some influence from the philosophies of Zen Buddhism, which is prevalent in Japan. The animation is the main draw, and it is simply stunning. Astonishing amounts of detail have gone into the leaves on a tree, or ripples on water, and at times it approaches that holy grail of animation, photo-realism. If you are likely to be wowed by beautiful imaging, you will easily forgive the mundanity of the story. If you like the characters, that may carry you through. If you are not keen on those things though, I don't think you can be saved from considering this a tedious snore-fest.
Personally, I rather enjoyed it.
Actors: 6/10
Plot/script: 5/10
Photography/visual style: 9/10
Music/score: 6/10
Overall: 7/10
Makoto Shinkai is a master of visually stunning, quite short films that are heavy on 'feels'. He began with the astonishing achievement of single-handedly creating and animating hard sci-fi weepie 'Voices of a Distant Star' using only his own Apple Mac, and it is still a delight to watch today. Since then, he seems to have progressed fairly steadily towards more mundane settings, but his production standards have only risen.
'The Garden of Words' is a romantic drama set in modern Tokyo, featuring a schoolboy named Takao and an adult woman named Yukino who meet by coincidence in a park, when they should both have been otherwise occupied. Incidentally, they are voiced by very prominent seiyuu Miyu Irino and Kana Hanazawa, making this a fairly prestigious project.
As the story develops, we find out why each is bunking off, and a romantic element develops. This is somewhat awkward, given the age difference, but in the moment I found it no more incongruous than the fact that Takao is a straight male who aspires to become a designer of women's shoes.
The plot is incredibly slow, making the 46 minutes seem far longer. This is not helped by the incredibly sparse dialogue and lack of music, which give the viewer very little to latch onto. I wondered if there might be some influence from the philosophies of Zen Buddhism, which is prevalent in Japan. The animation is the main draw, and it is simply stunning. Astonishing amounts of detail have gone into the leaves on a tree, or ripples on water, and at times it approaches that holy grail of animation, photo-realism. If you are likely to be wowed by beautiful imaging, you will easily forgive the mundanity of the story. If you like the characters, that may carry you through. If you are not keen on those things though, I don't think you can be saved from considering this a tedious snore-fest.
Personally, I rather enjoyed it.