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I should probably make it clearer that in no way does an Oscar for any category guarantee the film's greatness. The Titanic may have several Oscars in different categories, but I don't believe it's that great of a film either.

My problem lies within the fanbase hyping it beyond epic proportions. Titanic was an okay film, I understand its significance, it's well reputed within the film industry, it's provides a well disputed and recognized problem of whether or not the events of the film actually happened and if Jack really existed or not, and it does a pretty good job of telling a love story aboard a literal sinking ship. I personally don't believe that Titanic should have beat Good Will Hunting for best picture in 1998 because Good Will Hunting was actually a very heartfelt and amazing movie. However, the Academy itself, and the fans behind the film were so caught up within the literal dramatization of the Titanic incident and the love story written specifically for the film that it won the Oscar. The fans of the film hype it beyond belief, such that other films have no chance. Again the same with Avatar, in your examples. Avatar won Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, and Best Visual Effects, all categories easily warranted by a film such as itself. The film was gloriously colorful and well designed to look at, however, somehow it was also nominated for Best Picture, as well. The film was a retelling of Pocahontas, he goes to the city of the natives, communicates with the daughter, discovers his own people are wrong, etc. I'm glad it didn't win; somehow collectively as a nation the United States spent $3.02 billion on watching the film, and only $2.5 billion on building the Curiosity Rover, an actual device that we have sent to the planet Mars.

Same goes for Sword Art Online. I personally love the problem and the universe built within the series, I really enjoy the video game aspect of virtual reality and full dive, and the threat it poses to the mental state of the user. I enjoy that he's a badass harem king because I personally enjoy the genre. However, Kirito isn't without flaws. He is ridiculously overpowered in every aspect, to the point where he never displays that he has a flaw nor struggle. He has a goal, but the obstacles in his way are never depicted in a way that would be an actual legitimate adversary other than time, so he spends a lot of the time wasting time but never actually struggling to get things done. His only emotional struggle comes from "maybe hitting the boss harder will make me win" which defeats all logic of video game mechanics and story telling, it feels like a cheap cop out meant for gamers to try to relate to being an overpowered main character who can get over every problem. Unlike Log Horizon for example, where Shirou fails endlessly until he passes, an actual video gaming related aspect of grinding to learn mechanics until the completion. Kirito's character is bland, boring, tasteless, and literally forgettable; he disappeared from the second half of season 2, how can a series honestly delete its main character from the episodes to give us as fans Asuna fanservice?

My point is, you are wrong. A film does need something to make it great in order to make it memorable. Kimi no Na Wa's saving grace lies within the time difference and dimensional divide/crossing of Taki and Mitsuha. Without that, I think the film would fade into memories as many movies have. Taki changing the future through and with Mitsuha is something I have never seen in a film before, and even worse the fact they lost their memories of the events leading up to the forgetting of each other's names (of which this event is what the film is named after) was genuinely stunning. However, the film never touches on the body swapping aspect in any way besides a nuisance that eventually stops. The first half of the film is a slice of life in where they figure out how to live each other's lives, and that's it. They never struggle with each other's problems save for Taki being recognized as not being Mitsuha to Mitsuha's father. The body swapping element stays shallow and never really becomes a deep element shared between the two characters, proven by how it is literally forgotten as they forget each other. It has no long lasting feeling like it mattered, it was merely a way for two people of long distance to introduce their lives to each other. Mitsuha's grandmother mentioned that her mother shared a similar experience of the body swapping, but never elaborates further than that.

The story warrants a 7 because there are several better ways the film could have gone, but the path chosen seems too simple and laid out, as I have mentioned before. I was impressed by the art, I always will be with a Shinkai production, but I felt that the same story was told in one of Shinkai's previous works, 5 Centimeters per Second. Again as I have mentioned in the review, they share the elements of trains, they take you any way the tracks lead, but you can't control the tracks. He elaborates this in Kimi no Na Wa in how their futures end up not intertwined, their lives taking them separately and away from each other with no control over their path. It is visually represented in how they see each other on a train, not knowing if they're going to see each other after the train stops. They race and meet, optimally ending where it was supposed to. In 5 Centimeters, at the end they both end on the same tracks, and a train cuts them off; visually representing their lives being cut off by life itself, it's uncontrollable.

Again, I stand behind my rating that the film deserves a 7 in story.

I am writing spoilers for the film Kimi No Na Wa in this comment. Please read at your discretion.

Thank you for your criticism, but I'd like to highlight some fair points about opinion.

The way I rate the things I've seen is purely based on the enjoyment of the series. I enjoyed Kimi no Na Wa, I enjoyed some ecchi series like Shokugeki and To Love Ru, and I enjoyed Naruto. In no way have I made an attempt to slander the reputation of a great movie that was Kimi No Na Wa, and I'd like to remind that my opinion of the movie is my own, and your opinion of my opinion is your own.

That being said, I would also like to highlight something about the film itself. While it was a great movie, I do humbly admit that I enjoyed it, I've seen it 4 times, paid for it in theatres 3 times (the first showing was free at Anime Expo 2016). The story was a 7 not because I'm saying it was bad, but because I'm saying that it has introduced nothing new to the industry, it's a cliche'd body swap story between a boy and a girl who end up falling in love over their experience. The plot is laid out before the audience's eyes, insofar that it becomes easy to see where the film is going. Taki goes to the mountain as Mitsuha, one could easily guess that he's going to have to go back there as himself to meet Mitsuha, etc.

I do enjoy the aspect of the time difference between Taki and Mitsuha, and how their lives don't really intertwine until Mitsuha gives him the braided cord in the train in the original timeline where she died. The time spanning story was an element that genuinely surprised me, but the plot itself is still cookie cut for me, as soon as the light is shed that Mitsuha is dead in the original timeline, the plot immediately becomes guessable. Taki is going to try to find a way back to the past to bring her back to life. Again, following a laid out path, no surprises.

I give the plot a 7 to surmise that I enjoyed the film, but I personally believe it's not deserving of beating a film like Spirited Away, for example, in the top 5 most grossing anime movies. I don't believe it was Oscar worthy for best animated film, because it really was nothing new. I am a big fan of Makoto Shinkai, but the film itself became bigger than what it really deserved to be.