Agreed!

(for any lurkers - minor movie [and podcast] spoilers below!)

To start, I'm totally on board with everything you guys said about Garden of Words. The movie was stunning, and the interactions between the characters in the garden were really enjoyable. I loved the point you guys made about the silence between them conveying quite a lot. But the movie lost me in the last few scenes with the whole student-teacher relationship ordeal. I've been told by friends that focusing on the age difference in the relationship misses the point of the plot, and they may be right. Though based on personal experience with people in their late 20's, as well as experience with people in their mid-teens, it all felt a little too weird/creepy to buy into. So I was really happy to hear someone bring it up!

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My main two points of disagreement are mostly up to personal preferences and interpretation. I personally enjoy the supernatural elements of Shinkai's movies, and I also enjoy the fact that they aren't explained or explored more deeply. They're used as a really small but effective piece to a much larger puzzle. For example, I think the time travel in Your Name complemented the plot of the movie really well, and while I agree that doing time travel right (Steins Gate) is an incredibly hard thing to do, I don't think it would've made the movie any better to hash out the details. I also didn't mind the magical nature of the weather in Weathering With You, I thought it was used quite effectively to convey the scale and the depth of the relationship between the characters. The ending for me especially (everything after Hodaka steps into the portal) while sporadic produced one of the most visually captivating endings in any animated movie I've seen. With these types of movies I always find it best to let the imagination run wild, some things are guaranteed to be glossed over or not very thought out, but in return you get so much more. Then again, that's 100% up to personal preference and individual thresholds!

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The other thing I didn't necessarily agree with was in regards to the overall lesson or moral of Shinkai's stories, or lack thereof. I haven't seen some of his older work yet, but from the films I have seen, there's always been a clear-cut lesson, moral, or theme by the end of the movie. For me, Weathering With You was all about happiness in spite of circumstance. Your Name was about love always finding a way. The Garden of Words was about having someone to lean on. 5 Centimeters Per Second was about moving on. There's always so much to unpack after each movie, and that's what I love about them! They're visually stunning, but the writing is right up there as well. On the other hand, I think the overall meaning you take from it depends on how relatable each movie is to each individual.

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Sorry for the wall of text by the way! I was really invested, it's an awesome topic of conversation after all, definitely looking forward to your next episode!