The movie is your typical Makoto Shinkai film – gorgeous graphics and and vibrant colors all around. A few more movies like this and Shinkai’s going to give Studio Ghibli a run for its money in the “scrumptious food animation” department. Just look at these amazing meals.

My biggest pet peeve in this movie comes at the end, so spoiler alert for those reading this. I’m wondering why, after Hodaka rescued Hina from the clouds and brought her back to the land of the living, Shinkai used a time skip of 3 years to finish the story? What was the point? Hodaka says he graduated first before going back to Tokyo, and that he had no contact with Hina (she had no phone) since that day he rescued her. They do meet up again afterwards and it was implied they still feel the same for each other. What did the time skip add to the story? For me all it showed was Japan under water and it just incensed me even more, but I’ll go back to that later.

There was no point in having Hodaka return to his island home and finish school while Hina was waiting patiently in Tokyo for 3 years. Who in this age doesn’t have a phone? Not even a smart phone, just a basic one for text and calls. Why not get one so they can call and stay in touch with each other during their separation? The movie feels like it was written by 2 writers, 1 for the first half and the other for the confusing ending. It feels disjointed.

And what about the consequences of Hodaka’s choice to rescue Hina? I’m not gonna call it selfish because the whole premise of having a young woman be sacrificed for normal weather is cruel. But look at the ending! Almost all of Tokyo is underwater now. How many Tokyo citizens were affected, displaced and possibly even killed at the city’s new normal? And was it just Tokyo affected? What about the other Japanese cities? Again, I’m not calling out Hodaka on rescuing Hina, it’s just a really weird setting to place a love story in. How would the audience feel a sense of romance when the lovestruck pair just doomed an entire city?