Makoto Shinkai is the legendary director behind acclaimed anime movies like Your Name, Weathering With You, and his most recent film, Suzume. The director is often lauded as one of the greats and put on the same pedestal as visionaries like Hayao Miyazaki. While his most popular movies rightly deserve all the praise they receive from his dedicated fans, one of Shinkai’s most underappreciated shorter films, The Garden of Words, is sitting on HIDIVE, waiting to be watched and adored. It also coincidentally might be Shinkai’s most beautiful movie to date.
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That’s definitely a grand statement to make about the director who has become renowned for gorgeous animation. While the aforementioned Hayao Miyazaki (and Studio Ghibli as a whole) are best known for the incredible worldbuilding and fantastical creatures found in their movies, Shinkai’s films are known for their breathtaking beauty, which truly cements the filmmaking phrase, “every frame a painting.” But The Garden of Words takes things to another level.
The Garden of Words Is Streaming on HIDIVE
Unlike Makoto Shinkai’s most popular films, which blend romantic elements with the fantastical and magical (and, occasionally, science fiction), The Garden of Words is a purely grounded drama. The movie follows Takao, a high school student who is struggling with motivation at school. He often skips class to sit at his favorite public garden, where he works on his true passion: designing shoes. One day he meets Yukino, a young woman with her own troubles at work. Over the coming weeks, the pair form an unlikely bond and friendship through their mutual struggle.
Released in 2013, The Garden of Words was a hit with fans. The film holds a solid 84% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. While it pales in comparison to the lofty 96% held by Suzume, Weathering With You, and Your Name, The Garden of Words is definitely worth your time. Speaking of time, it’s also one of Shinkai’s shortest films, coming in at just 46 minutes (putting it just into the threshold of being classed as a feature film).
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Why You Should Watch The Garden of Words
The Garden of Words might be one of Makoto Shinkai’s most ambitious movies. Not in terms of scale, that absolutely goes to Suzume, but the acclaimed director does something truly unique with the movie’s animation. Shinkai treats the animation as though he were using a real film camera. The framing and lighting are as realistic as possible, but the true beauty is in the subtlety. Makoto Shinkai and his team of animators at CoMix Wave Films included minute details like camera shaking, as though the film was shot handheld, and focus pulling to ground the incredibly personal and relatable story even more.
We’re not proclaiming The Garden of Words is Makoto Shinkai’s greatest movie. After all, that is a title that is hotly debated by his dedicated fan base. However, The Garden of Words doesn’t get anywhere near enough love from the general fan base, and at just a 46-minute runtime, it absolutely deserves your attention.
