The closest theater to me is only showing the dub for the times I can make, might make a trek to see it in Japanese at another theater.
Just got back from seeing it, absolutely loved it. I'm honestly just a sucker for Shinkai's movies. It's funny, incredibly sad, looks amazing. I was expecting more full band Radwimps songs but the music is still fantastic.
I’m glad he actually somewhat tackled real disasters that Japan has faced. The music made me more excited for the Radwimps show this July.
Everything from the animation, the music, the setting, etc. It all compliments each other so well. Shinkai a winning formula for sure.
I’ve enjoyed watching Shinkai flesh out his style more since his earlier movies which are undoubtedly beautiful but wore their Ghibli influences super strong. That said I still adore 5 Centimeters Per Second and Children Who Chase Lost Voices.
5 Centimeters per Second was the first film of Shinkai that I watched. Late 2012, I think. I was floored by the attention to detail and the score from Tenmon. 5CPS, Garden of Words, and Place Promised in Our Early Days (only film of his I am not big on) are all pretty much slice-of-life. Children Who Chase Lost Voices is the most Ghibli he went and it was pretty obvious that’s what he was going for. I think he nailed the aesthetic. I sent him a tweet in 2014 asking if my friends and I could write music and about his songs and send them to him and he said that he would love that. Unfortunately, we never did, but I like to imagine that was inspiration behind him hiring Radwimps to score Your Name the following year lol
I asked Tenmon around late 2015 (when the first teaser for Your Name was released) why he wasn’t composing the music and he told me there were scheduling conflicts. I always assumed he would eventually return but I guess not.