Watch The Garden of Words For Free

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Nothing special. I expected more than this... If you like cheesy stories than you are gonna love this...

When I saw this film, sorry, work of art, I was lost. I thought that I was the only one really falling in love for my 15 year old student back home. I really related to the main protagonist (shiro) and I loved it. if you want your tears flowing, watch this movie guys and gals of all ages. Oh by the way, is the director like really into feet? I mean there's like 60 shots of feet, and toes, and I was like D. I like feet but cm-on guy. Just one foot is enough floor me I say. Anyways, have a good night as always. catch you all on the flip my dudes

Within the first few seconds, you know you're in for a treat for your eyes. The animation in this movie so well done and pleasing to watch. It's one of the better animations I've seen, at least when it comes to the environment (the people are animated pretty much just like most other anime movies). There are so many details and work put into this.We meet the boy Takao quickly through his narration. It's both beautiful to listen to and at the same time kind of funny, since he is only 15 and he makes it sound like an angsty diary entry. He like the rain, and shoes. He skips school to go to the park when it rains, where he meets a woman. They seem to have the same idea of going to the park on rainy days. He finds out eventually that he wants to design shoes for her.The movie is unintentionally funny in its fixation in shoes and feet. In one way, it almost framed in a fetishized way, on the other hand, its very sweet and beautiful to watch.The movie is very short, so there is not much time for character development or to let the story unravel in a slow pace. I don't know myself why Shinkai didn't make it longer (time or money or both probably), but if he could've made it longer, he should have. It has lots of promise, and would be way more interesting if it could tackle their relationship more, especially based on the massive taboo on age difference in Japan. It misses out on some really good opportunities for telling a deeper story.There's a climax where there is a lot of feelings and crying going on and it is, unfortunately, bombarded with really loud emotional music. The dialogue is intense and almost violent, and at the same time kind of silly in a strange way. The music almost drowns out the dialogue and there is anger and sadness and love and it all happens so fast and in an intense way it's hard to know what to feel.I really wanted to like this movie more than I did. It has a lot of potential, the animation, again, is gorgeous, the story is cute, but with not much substance (of course it has some, it tackles some issues of the woman, Yukari, for example, but not deeply enough. Everything is told so fast you'll almost miss it). I do want to see more of Shinkai (this is the first one I see), because I have no doubt he has made things better than this, and I look forward to see it.

Version I saw: UK Bluray releaseActors: 6/10Plot/script: 5/10Photography/visual style: 9/10Music/score: 6/10Overall: 7/10Makoto 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.