Shinkai’s new anime is largely compelling, though sometimes bogged down by its melodramatic excess and narrative contrivances. 

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This largely-narrated hour-long anime in three parts captures with introspection and quiet solace the bliss and despairing nature of first love, with breathtaking visuals to boot. 

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It remains visually and aurally stimulating, but Makoto Shinkai’s new work doesn’t really fly off the ground, and ultimately succumbs to perfunctory storytelling and a so-so emotional payoff.

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Shinkai’s breathtaking romance anime is imbued with a modern sensibility as it takes on conceptual themes of time travel, apocalyptic disaster and body swapping with effortless aplomb.

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In his beautiful if sometimes convoluted first feature, Makoto Shinkai shows the early rumblings of an artist who would become a first-rate anime director.

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