-It feels like an abridged story, like there is somewhere a full, longer story waiting. But it's a movie and there are limits where they have to comply with.
For example, in the first part there was four perspectives to see: the girl's normal life, the boy's normal life, the girl in his body, the boy in her body. It would have been nice if we could have seen all of them, we were missing some.
If this would have been a 12 episodes series, it would have worked that way.
-I was thinking during the first part 'why they are leaving notes in dairies, why don't they talk through chat or call each other. They can just call their own phone'. Of course there is a reason it would haven't worked and the film in fact shows it.
-But this tie with my other problem, and it's the spark of the romance.
It isn't there!
They never interacted with each other truly, they were just leaving notes on the smartphone with menial stuff like 'don't waste my money'; and the part where they do that briefly interaction with each other that way is in fact presented in the film with a quick summary with music. That's the single big mistake of the movie (because this is a love story!), that part needed more development not a quick summary jumping over it. It really needed at least one scene just before the big twist where they start taking each other in a more friendly way, some jokes, maybe some teasing that could be interpreted as they are starting to like each other...
But it doesn't work the way the film does it, with her starting to cry because the date she created. First start acting as if you were a bit jealous, then maybe later do the crying when you notice you really like him! The tears in that moment felt melodramatic.
Of course in that moment shit hits the fan, the truth is discovered, and before they can establish a real connection the film start treating them as lovers separated by fate.
You may think this is funny, but I like my love stories to have proper logic!
-Following the 'it should have been a series', a plot thread that was kind of teased but it never really appeared in the film was the relationship of the girl with his father. It could have been a help to the story to have a more mundane relationship plot thread complementing to the more fantastic and bigger than life time traveling/save the town! threads.
Hell, the films takes the easy way out and we are left to our imagination on how the hell the girl reconnected with his father and convinced him finally to do the evacuation. This would be fixed if this were a plot thread of the story.
-There is some
too sappy lines in there. And I liked some sappy romances before. In the second part they are trying to save the town from the comet desperately, but in between there are some corny lines with their inner thought that well, it didn't feel like thinking 'ohh your name!' in that moment was the priority. With the comet falling down and shit.
-The end is predictable, the guy is alone in the big city and wondering what he is missing, and I'm like 'come on find her already, you are not fooling anyone, get on it'.
Because they way the film is directed and how it deals with the plot, it was clear it's a story that was going to have a happy ending, where they live happily ever after, I felt that way even if Shinkai had some previous romantic stories where the couple don't end together.
