I saw garden of words without context at a convention in maybe 2015. To me the plot is unhinged but anyone else who has seen it says "I mean it's a tad weird but it's fine" and like??? No???
Shinkai films always relate back to some form of separation, time, space, etc,,
Garden of words is separation by age...
Yes its unhinged AF but I love it. Its got gorgeous animation, hypnotic rain scenes, its got feet, its got grooming, its got super pretty edge coloring.. What what were those two things?...
Right ok so I'm not alone in this. To be entirely faitr it was after a long day of convention, me and my at the time girlfriend were very put off by it, like, the feet and the grooming and the day drinking really push too forward for the original message to still make sense and we'd only ever mention it in jest.
I'd recommend giving it another watch if it's been a few years, it's not that bad we just like making fun of it, nothing gross or inappropriate happens.
She doesn't "groom him" at all, he misreads her kindness as affection because he not as mature as he thinks, she pushes back against his adolescent crush and they connect on a more real and human level than that. She's also the teacher you see at the start of your name too, which is a nice little connection to see she's doing OK a few years later.
Its actually one of my favourite shorter films (it's only 45 minutes), I first saw it in 2013 and thought it was good but a bit odd in subject matter, but I'm 34 now and understand it on a different level, that is, sometimes you find your strongest emotional support in the people you'd least expect, and because of that I connected with it on a really deep level..
Still got the feet though, but these days I'm into that I guess.