I feel like I could‘ve enjoyed this more if I was japanese or knew more about japanese culture and mythology. As is I just feel like a lot stuff that happened was kinda random and I ended up asking myself a lot of why‘s and how‘s. I also felt like the pacing was a little slow and the emotions that were implied weren’t really earned. That said, a very beautiful film that also dares to try interesting 3D motion shots and a mesmerizing score. The film definitely felt shinkai-coded in it‘s approach to storytelling and animation, which is a good thing, but whereas Suzume (2022) for example takes your hand and introduces you to the themes it explores, here you‘re kinda just dumped in with the expectation you already know most of what there is to know so it just tells a run of the mill coming of age romance instead.
I feel like I could‘ve enjoyed this more if I was japanese or knew more about japanese culture and mythology. As is I just feel like a lot stuff that happened was kinda random and I ended up asking myself a lot of why‘s and how‘s. I also felt like the pacing was a little slow and the emotions that were implied weren’t really earned. That said, a very beautiful film that also dares to try interesting 3D motion shots and a mesmerizing score. The film definitely felt shinkai-coded in it‘s approach to storytelling and animation, which is a good thing, but whereas Suzume (2022) for example takes your hand and introduces you to the themes it explores, here you‘re kinda just dumped in with the expectation you already know most of what there is to know so it just tells a run of the mill coming of age romance instead.
