The Garden of Words [SUB] (2013) Review

 The Garden of Words [SUB] (2013) 7.5/10

[THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!]

Hello and welcome to another movie review. Today, I’m going to go over a movie that I have a lot of conflicting feelings about. The Garden of Words is a dramatic anime movie that premiered at the Australian Gold Coast Film Festival on April 28, 2013, with the movie being written and directed by Makoto Shinkai. The movie was animated by CoMix Wave Films. The movie is regarded as an underrated masterpiece by film critics and fans of Shinkai, and I just can’t agree with that.

I have seen this movie a few times now. The first time I didn’t care for it, the second time I found it disgusting because I misinterpreted it, and now I finally get it. The Garden of Words is by no means a masterpiece like some people claim, but I would say that it’s actually a good movie. Let’s begin.

This is the story of Takao Akizuki, a 15-year-old high school student. As opposed to his classmates, he keeps to himself and has a hidden hobby that he wishes to make a career out of: shoemaking. Ever since he was little, he’s been interested in shoes and has been wanting to make shoes. He’s been designing and buying materials to create his own footwear. He also really likes the rain. During the rainy season, he’ll always ditch school to sit in a nearby park and enjoy the rain, working on his designs in the process. One day, he ditches school and goes to the park like normal, but this time there is another person in his favorite spot. This person is a young woman who is also ditching work. As they repeatedly meet each other everyday, they grow a relationship and eventually open up about each other. As the rainy season comes to a close and Takao no longer sees a reason to skip school, certain truths will come out as they both realize just how much they have affected one another.

So in my last viewing of The Garden of Words, I completely misinterpreted the movie as a love story between an adult and a minor, and because of this notion I wrote off the movie as disgusting and have been bashing it ever since. Well, I felt the need to revisit this to confirm my feelings on it, especially with a lot of people praising it for many different reasons. The Garden of Words is not what I thought it was, making me sigh with relief lol. This is a movie about two people using each other for their own character development. Takao and Ms Yukino use each other as a source of kinship, becoming friends through their conversations. The way the movie tells its narrative through both dialogue and environmental storytelling makes it a very unique experience. Ultimately, I liked Takao and I felt bad for Ms Yukino, being forced to quit her job over some shitty students. But ultimately, I am really glad that this movie didn’t go the route I originally thought it did.

The best part about this movie, and the same can be said with all of Shinkai’s movies, is the production. The way this dude produces his movies to have them look like moving paintings is incredible. The Garden of Words is one of the most visually impressive movies I have ever seen, and this is coming from someone who has seen some of his other movies, Ghibli, and even Redline. You can choose any frame from this movie, and 9 times out of 10, you’ll be able to hang that up in a museum. All the shots of the weather, the park, that one branch touching the water, and especially when the typhoon hits, everything just looks perfect. And the animation for all of this is fantastic too. I will say, with how phenomenal everything looks, the sheer presence of anime characters kind of detracts from the movie’s art direction. Not saying they look bad, but they just feel out of place at times.

Music is pretty good too. Supposedly, Makoto Shinkai heard a song called “Rain” (which is used for the end credits) and when he heard this song, he felt the inspiration for this movie come to him. If that’s not the power of music, then I don’t know what is. And the music for the movie is pretty good too. Lots of piano used to help set the stage for most of these scenes. The voice acting is pretty solid too. Shout out to our two main stars Miyu Irino (Takao) and Kana Hanazawa (Ms Yukino). 

The Garden of Words is a good movie, and with a short run time of 45 minutes, anyone should have the time to check it out. A better movie than I initially thought, but I still don’t understand why it is so revered besides its art direction. Until my next review, stay frosty.

Thanks for reading.

This is Zorgak, signing off.