This comes from my blog: www.karma.moe/2016/11/the-garden-of-words-review.html
With the recent success of Your Name; I thought I would spotlight some of the other works of Makoto Shinkai – starting with Garden of Words. This was the biggest release from the creator that was before Your Name. It takes place around the relationship created between a boy and a woman who meet in a garden under curious circumstances. Both of them have hidden parts of their lives that they are trying to escape from; escaping to the garden to spend time with each other – developing a friendship despite their differences.
Like all the works of Makoto Shinkai, this is an experience and more than what is already said – it cannot be explained. It develops not only the emotions related to the relationship between the main characters, but also the emotions related to the landscape; the garden and the city they live in itself. There is more to everything than meets the eye and for a short animation, it is jam-packed with content to think and reflect on.
The story is absolute and the art is phenomenal – the world has come to expect nothing less from the brilliant Makoto Shinkai. This is nothing like you have ever seen, it is sort of arty and takes place mostly in internal monologue and unspoken truths. There is so much depth in nature of this film and it is really just something special. If you liked Kimi no Na wa then I would suggest picking this up; but if you aren’t able to watch it for a while because of your location, I would also suggest to get a taste of what you are in for because this is the same amount of creativity in one place. You will cry and smile – this is the Shinkai way.