Having attended the world premiere last weekend I figured I'd give a quick and spoiler free impression of the movie. The Garden of Words is short but delivers the story adequately imo. Characters acted true to their age and personalities. I really liked how the movie presented Takao's view of Yukino as a mysterious older lady to the viewers too. You're left guessing about Yukino's situation even when the POV shifts to her. It'll be interesting to see what people think of Takao and Yukino's relationship and the climax of the film.
The soundtrack is limited but the few tracks that did play were nice. However I felt that the volume could have been toned down when characters spoke cause it got a little distracting trying to listen to the dialogue. Production wise, it's another deathly gorgeous film as expected of Shinkai. Especially for foot fetishists. lol
If you think that it's like 5cm, then you're not really off but at the same time it's no 5cm rehash. The emotions are a lot less... bottled up(?) than 5cm, particularly towards the end. A lot of symbolism in it too. The Q&A session was pretty informative and shed some light on the symbolism and wordplay that went into the scenes. Unfortunately the interviewer was kinda incompetent, so the session didn't feel as well utilized as it could've. The audience's questions were only a little better. Most useless question award goes to "why are the characters less detailed than the background?". There's also a hilarious yet facepalm worthy moment where the interviewer brought up how people called Shinkai's works "scenery porn". I really wonder how his translator explained that to him.
Shinkai himself is a great man in person. Humble and friendly, he really did all he could in order to allow all his fans a chance to greet him to the point he held another autograph session after the movie for those who were at the back of the (very long) queue earlier and did not get to have a go. Those of us who were first in line were even allowed to come back to take photos with him. It was a truly unforgettable experience.