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The Garden of Words: Makoto Shinkai's best film

cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,195
Coral Springs, FL
To any fans of Your Name or even Weathering With You, you owe it to yourself to go watch this right now, some how, some way.

A quiet character study of two completely different people struggling to find their way in life.

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It's short, sweet, full of depth and tugs at the strings like no other.

That moment in the dub is nothing short of heartbreaking. That came from the soul.

gow-31m55s.png


Hopefully I'm not the only one who considers this his best work.

I'm not sure if it's on a streaming service or not, hopefully someone can help me out there, but I wound up ordering it from a library then buying it immediately afterward.


 
Bradford

Bradford

terminus est
Member
Aug 12, 2018
5,423
I believe this is streaming on Netflix in most territories and Amazon Prime in most others.

I go back and forth on whether or not I like this or Your Name more, but it is absolutely fantastic no matter what and is worth a watch.
 
FTF

FTF

Member
Oct 28, 2017
28,357
New York
This is on Netflix and i can't wait to finally watch it. The stills and visuals l've seen I love so will be watching this tomorrow night.
 
Silent

Silent

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
2,433
Hmm, I think I'll give this a shot. Is it available with both subs and dub on Netflix? Which would you recommend?
 
Owl

Owl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,091
California
It has the best looking water, puddles and raindrops, but Your Name and Weathering with You are both better. Shoot, 5cm per second might be better but I haven't seen that in quite a while. Wasn't a big fan of the plot of Garden of Words.
 
Teiran

Teiran

Member
Oct 27, 2017
45
There's nothing I don't like about this movie. I feel unqualified to say it's Shinkai's best, since I haven't seen Weathering with You, but of the ones I *have* seen (i.e. every other one) this is indeed my favorite. I still think about the two tanka all the time.
 
Fugu

Fugu

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,730
I like all of Makoto Shinkai's films, but I rate this definitely below both 5cm/s and Your Name. I'd put it on about the same level as The Place Promised in Our Early Days, which has a worse plot but is for my money still the more beautiful film.
 
Lynd

Lynd

Member
Oct 29, 2017
2,438
This is my least favorite Shinkai film and I've followed him since Voices came out. Although I have only watched it once I think. I will give it another watch sometime.

Definitely nowhere near Your Name.
 
cosmicspooks

cosmicspooks

Member
Oct 29, 2017
162
I remember being pretty into most of it, but felt it eventually tripped into corny and loud melodrama that wasn't tonally deserved or done particularly well. That kinda soured me on the whole thing.
Then again, I'm not really into anything Shinkai pre-Your Name so...haha

But hey, maybe I'd like it more on rewatch! And if nothing else you can't deny that it is stupid pretty
 
jman2050

jman2050

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
5,787
I'm not a huge Shinkai fan in general (Your Name is great though and by far the best thing he's done) and this work was more of the same as far as I was concerned.

Very pretty, with a very good soundtrack and some nice VA work but ultimately just kind of meanders about until it simplifies itself into a final emotional confrontation that kinda has a novel message if you squint hard enough but ultimately just boils down to the same rote "life sucks but connecting with people makes it suck slightly less" refrain in almost all of his stuff.

I do stress again though, because it's true, it's really pretty and probably worth watching just for that alone. And it's short so it's certainly not a waste of time even if it kind of bounced off me.
 
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