Kotonoha no Niwa (The Garden of Words)

Kotonoha no Niwa (The Garden of Words)

Makoto Shinkai

CoMix Wave Films

Kotonoha no Niwa's movie poster

Akizuki while plotting down Yukino's shoe size

[I was able to watch two awesome movies this summer and I'm planning to post my reactions about the movies here!]

*****

なるかみの, すこしとよみて,さしくもり,あめもふらぬか,きみをとどむ  

"A faint clap of thunder,Clouded skies, Perhaps rain will come. If so, will you stay here with me?"  -Yukari Yukino

なるかみの,すこしとよみて, ふらずとも, わはとどまらむ, いもしとど ば

\"A faint clap of thunder, Even if rain comes or not, I will stay here, Together with you." -Takao Akizuki 

Kotonoha no Niwa is one of Makoto Shinkai's masterpiece. It tells the story of a highschool boy named Akizuki and a school teacher named Yukino. The two met one rainy morning at the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden.

Akizuki is an aspiring shoe maker. He has a habit of skipping school during rainy mornings and spends the time for his first subject in the garden to design shoes. One morning, he met a mysterious woman drinking beer partnered with chocolate early in the morning. 

The two will always meet in the same place during rainy mornings until they developed an odd relationship. Both of them enjoyed each other's company while keeping anonymity. It was later on that one morning, Akizuki discovered the woman's real identity after hearing the stories from his friends.

The woman happens to be a teacher of his school named Yukino. Her students bullied her to the point of losing hope in returning to school and continue teaching. Thus instead of doing her job, she spent her day in the park where the garden where he met Akizuki.

You might be raising an eyebrow right now and saying "What is this? Some movie about student x teacher sprinkled with May December Relationship?". Well yeah... basically its a yes and a no. You don't want me to spoil the good movie don't you? (Though if you know Makoto Shinkai enough, you know where this movie is going lol)

What I like most from the movie aside from the tear jerking plot is the animation. Its almost as if you're not watching anime (notice the backgrounds). I remember my sister and I laughing so hard because we pause every now and then to check if it really looks real or what. 

See? SEE?!

I've read a lot of reviews and comments about the movie from other blogs and yep they're right. This story is way way diffrent from Shinkai's work such as "Five Centimeters Per Second". Its not that depressing but it'll leave you hanging. 

You can watch the movie HERE!

Enjoy watching!