Well, at least it was beautiful. What is perfect is natural - the quality of the picture for Shinkai has always meant a lot. A fantasy entourage allows you to walk around: psychedelic landscapes of epic proportions are presented in the range. The atmosphere also succeeded - some kind of sadness characteristic of the author, melancholy.
Speciality of this tape does not occupy. Here is the problem with everything else. First, the imitation of the classic fantasy anime - Hayao Miyazaki is very noticeable. An exiled prince fighting a monster and meeting a friend in a foreign land, huge monsters of mystical origin, even the clothes of the heroes - all makes you remember "Princess Mononoke."
And here's the second problem. Still, Miyazaki is optimistic - even when gloomy. His heroes fight and win. Shinkai made an anime not about struggle - on the contrary, about humility, about inevitability. The very idea that death is natural and irreversible, and there is no point in destroying oneself with painful grief for the departed, trying to regain what is lost forever – this idea is quite sober. And it reflects well the attitude towards death in Japanese culture, which is much more calm and philosophical than in Western culture. That's what lets the director down - the film turned out to be too morbid. It is literally overflowing with a kind of solemn decadence - death is everywhere in it, everything inevitably declines, eventually disappearing forever. And, despite the fact that there is no visual gloom on the screen, longing creeps into the soul. Because, despite the words about rebirth and rebirth, death triumphs before the viewer. Without pathetics, without embellishment, without black — death as a natural element.
Bottom line: a colorful, but surprisingly depressing anime that does not save even a sophisticated adventure plot (excessive, as for me). In principle, nothing but another colorful hymn of unforgiving fate could be expected from Shinkai, but, playing on a foreign field, he made a typical mistake of beginners - he tried too hard to follow the canons and classical samples of the genre. The result is a film that is quite worthy of viewing - but if there are revelations here, it is only in terms of graphic beauty.
7 out of 10
Original