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Revolutionary animation with a great story that takes us through south Japan to the north!

Makoto Shinkai makes another stunning anime, but this time the story felt way more fulfilling than his previous works.
Absolutely stunning animation, but I still can't put my finger on what they did, but the smoothness felt way nicer. You might not notice it or even care about it for all that matters but it did feel different, and in my opinion, in a good way!

How come the story is more fulfilling?
The story starts off with a flashback that gets explained, the character development is great, and you feel like you learn ... a lot about the protagonists and antagonists.
(I realized half-through writing this part that I don't want to spoil anything from this movie, and it's almost impossible to not spoil)

It has a start and an end, and nothing feels left out between those two. There's not a dull moment in the movie, you have multiple scenes that has action, and they are well planned and long lasting.
The characters are all well-made and feels very real, they don't seem artificial, and everything just flows very well in their conversation.

So, why is the rating a 9 out of 10, I made it sound as if it's the perfect anime. Well, it might be.

BUT! I want to rewatch it again and rethink my rating.

But because of the lack of reviews + spoilers I thought I'd write this one out.
I'll probably delete this review when the movie is released globally.

I would personally rate this 9.5/10, close to perfection for a movie.
If you liked the previous movies from Makoto Shinkai, then you'll most likely like this one, it's in my opinion his best work.
He has perfected what his previous works couldn't do.
BRAVO!

Makoto Shinkai's next movie (2025) waiting room.

Short non-objective and biased review.

Well, well, well...
This was actually surprisingly good, I honestly didn't have my hopes up after watching 'Boku ga Aishita Subete no Kimi e' before watching this movie, which wasn't a good idea, but without going into spoilers, I can recommend watching Kimi wo Aishita Hitori no Boku e first.

'Kimi wo Aishita Hitori no Boku e' starts off at a good phase and it didn't slow down once in my opinion, sadly going into details with this movie isn't very easy without spoiling.

The two movies really go well together, even though it might not have been needed to make it into ... two movies, this one (Kimi wo Aishita Hitori no Boku e) was great.

The main character feels real, and their journey felt satisfying to follow. Their reaction feels genuine and the way they handle the situation feels real.

Unsure of what else to say without spoiling too much of the movie, I honestly think it's worth to go into this movie without looking at any trailers.

[63/100 Animation] The animation is way better in this one, but still feels a bit dated.

[84/100 Story] The story felt easy to follow and I thoroughly enjoyed the story more than other points.

[54/100 Sound] Was alright. The OST wasn't bad and felt fitting.

[65/100 Voice acting] VA is better and more alive compared to 'Boku ga Aishita Subete no Kimi e' though I'm biased because of Shiori's voice actor having more screen time.

TLDR; 'Kimi wo Aishita Hitori no Boku e & Boku ga Aishita Subete no Kimi e' are two movies made into one with two stories flowing into each-other.

This review will probably be deleted after the Movie had a global release.

Short early review...

The animation feels dated, the story seems to be a bit all over the place, but it's not all negative.
The movie opens up with an intriguing start, which I thought would promise more of an interesting plot, though it's not that special.

I don't know what to really say without going into spoiler territory, but I do honestly think that it would be worth the watch as long as it's free. I myself paid 1900 yen to watch this and all I can say is that it was alright.

If you are very interested in parallel universes and paradigm shifts (which I am interested in ... myself, but this just didn't seem to work) I think it might be a hit for you.
But for me it felt slightly shallow, and I honestly don't know what else to say about it.

My apologies, I have now watched the first part of this movie, aka 'Kimi wo Aishita Hitori no Boku e' and my point still stands with this movie, it wasn't, in my opinion, needed.
Though I recommend watching it if you want the full experience from the 'first' movie.

Animation 5/10
Story 6/10
Sound 5/10
VA 5/10

Reminder, I am not fluent in Japanese, and I watched this in Japan, but I did follow the plot at an okay level, but it honestly didn't strike a chord with me.

Minor spoilers ahead, but let's be honest, you won't care to read this review if you are actually planning on watching this show. TL;DR further down.

Short rant:

So! Japan sinks 2020 wasn't short of a dreadful mess of a story that was awfully put together, where even in the first episode I was already quite sure how the rest of the anime would play out.
(But I somehow still managed to finish the show, which I will give them a bonus point for(JK not really)
From a weird cut in the first 10 minutes of the episode to not explaining anything about that what could have ... possibly happened until 7 or 8~ episodes later which was, let's be honest, really half-assed.
(The mother is apparently a really good swimmer that can avoid a tsunami but struggles to keep her breathe for more than 20 seconds in a later episode, and have the plot armor stronger than any of your typical Isekai MC's)

Story: 3

Here is why I somehow enjoyed it, I love this kind of genre, but this was extremely poorly executed. It just all felt so random, I couldn't feel a flow of what was going on with it, each episode was quite decently set up structure wise, but the story was just weird, random and somewhat confusing.

Art: 3

From CTRL C CTRL V trees in the 2nd episode to 3 framed blurry scenes and shaking effects to very off-putting CGI (I can usually tolerate a bit of CGI) it wasn't looking very good for the art part.

Though, I do quite enjoy the way it is drawn, from having certain scenes being quite stunning to a 7-8 score but then having other scenes being barely a 2 and more close to a 1, especially when it was the majority of the show. It did end up bringing the score down for me.

Sound: 5

I actually enjoyed the OP song quite a lot, melancholy feeling I guess, and the 2nd episodes ED was very well used. Though it was the only two memorable things with the sound for me.
Rest of voice acting it was quite fine, I can't really judge it too well though as I am not fluent in Japanese. And I think that most is to blame on the director for it either way.
Other than that I can't say that I am too impressed with the sound but not disappointed either.

Characters: 1

Here is the biggest flaw for me, AWFUL character development and design.

The characters are not short from being as unrealistic as possible, I couldn't relate to any of them.
The constant thrown in English was so painful to hear. I GET IT, KID! YOU ARE A GAMER! (The young brother is a HC Gamer)

The biggest issue I had with the show was the characters reaction to loss, I couldn't understand any of their reasoning or reactions at all. They are faced with absolutely terrifying things you'd expect to see in a extremely dark and tragic show (which catastrophic shows should have) this was actually quite extreme in my opinion, but not in a bad way honestly... IF IT WASN'T FOR HOW THE CHARACTERS JUST DIDN'T CARE.
Second episode in an we get to witness a main character to the family go game end, yet it is as if nothing happened. CMON! There is blood and gore even, yet it doesn't feel like we get to see any of their emotions from it.
Yes we all experience tragedy differently but this just for some reason seems like the most unrealistic take they could have used.

Enjoyment: 4

Yes, the show isn't good, and far from perfect.
BUT it did have it's moments, otherwise I wouldn't have finished it. As I said previously it is one of my favorite genres.

Overall: 3

It wasn't good, it was hard to enjoy it without sometimes even outright sigh at what I was watching.
I wouldn't even recommend this to someone if they did have time to watch something, but either way it just boils down to my opinion, I can already see that a lot of people enjoy this show quite a lot. So don't take my word for it and watch it if you really want to!

TL;DR:

It's bad, other shows have done this way better in my opinion, like Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, where I actually got really emotional compared to this where I feel like I should have been more affected because of the horrifying scenes they have in it, but in the end I wasn't.
Make up your own mind and watch it though if you really, (Like really really really) want to. Otherwise I'd pass this one!