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An interesting but ultimately frustrating movie experience as despite a strong start, and absolutely top-notch animation and imagery throughout along with Joe Hisaishi's score, the shift into the more fantastical second half of the movie coincided with a progressive emotional disengagement to a point where it seemed to drag on 20 minutes too long and the rather abrupt ending was actually a relief that it was finally over.

Many themes were introduced, although while disjointed and somewhat ambiguous at points, the problem was the main character was fairly flat which worked a lot better with the tone and pacing of the first half of the movie ... but he remained very flat and uninteresting throughout and very hard to engage with during the second part with the women secondary characters even the Heron being kinda sidelined as soon as I started to become invested in each their characters individually.

As with The Wind Rises, the way reality and fantasy were blurred in a way that recalls Satoshi Kon's movies along with the multilayered themes and being open to multiple interpretations - although Kon was extremely skilled at being able to pull this off, The Boy and the Heron is someway short of that mark.

This was a really nice watch overall, the somewhat melancholic story is good with nice to look at - if fairly generic - animation. Naoko Yamada is back to a very familiar 'modern / high school with socially awkward characters' with a relatively straightforward story and a minimal set of characters - which is where I believe her strengths as a director lie, as results have been a lot more mixed

Very conventional and takes no risks, although as I believe it's based on an existing story, scope to do so is probably limited in this regard. Avoids trying to juggle complex narratives, and an over-reliance ... on melodrama, tonal shifts and cliches which has been present in her work at times - notably The Heike Story.

In short: a simple story, that although plays to Yamada's strengths as a director, results in a very good - if amazingly under-watched - piece of work.

Movie is perfectly OK at a popcorn-level, but despite touching on a lot of themes does not develop any of them with the kind of depth needed to be more emotionally resonant than it is. Despite enjoying it overall, was the first time I've finished a Shinkai movie and had no lingering feeling afterwards, even Weathering With You left me with some after-watch feeling - although mainly as the main guy was such an annoying character.

It's all following what has now become the 'Shinkai blockbuster formula', and while he does push at the edges of the formula (the chair), very few risks are being taken ... creatively.

Character animation is down a couple of notches from previous efforts with very generic character designs, Your Name in particular, although backgrounds remain as gorgeous as ever - although the CG was patchy and design of the 'worms' was very generic and made it look like a lower-end marvel movie at times. Music was also not bad, not great, but timing just seemed a little 'off' at times.