[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Gingermash

...the ending left me a little confused, could anyone elaborate? from my understanding it hints that they eloped?

Norimichi and Nazuna eloping was just one of the "what-if" endings. It appears that, in reality, Nazuna got transferred after her parents' divorce, and Norimichi never got around to confessing to her.

But it's implied at the end of the movie that Norimichi skipped school to find Nazuna.

The following is adapted from a more detailed reply I posted elsewhere, shortly after I viewed the movie.

Spoiler:

My original hunch was actually that Nazuna had drowned (possibly a suicide?), and all the events we see in the movie was Norimichi looking back, and wondering how things could have turned out if he had acted in time to prevent a chain of events from unfolding.

As it turns out, the movie was nowhere meant to be so dark. The original 1993 movie was themed on the innocence of childhood. Its intended meaning was, like the anime, very open-ended, but I think Shunji Iwai, the director/producer, wanted to stress that the meaning isn't as important as the memory of childhood: memories of making a big fuss over silly questions like whether fireworks are flat or round; memories of having a crush on the prettiest girl in class, but not daring to confess to her. And most especially, memories of childhood regrets, of not doing the things we should have done at the time.

Surprisingly, the 2017 anime movie follows the first two-thirds of the original film very closely, and branches off only towards the final third. Despite the narrative similarity, the end effect is subtly different, because the anime focuses more on the romance between Nazuna and Norimichi, rather than on the innocence of childhood.

The anime also introduces the element of "magic", by adding the glass ball that Nazuna found. I understand why it did so: Animation is at its best when it's used to portray fantasy that is otherwise difficult to convey with real actors and CGI. But in adding the glass ball, the movie ceases to be "ordinary", and that takes away some of the charm that made the 1993 movie quite endearing.

Now, as for the ending: It should be pointed out that ALMOST NONE of the events in the movie actually happened!

The "real" story branched into fantasy, the moment after Nazuna's mother dragged her home, and Norimichi threw the glass ball for the first time.

You can actually tell that the rest of the movie after that happens in a fantasy world, because of the subtle clues dropped. Norimichi's friend, Yusuke, for example, suddenly said "it's obvious that fireworks are flat", when in "reality", he said the opposite. Then there was both those moments when the kids got to the top of the lighthouse, and the fireworks that lit the sky were completely weird (flat in the first instance, and all flowery the second time around).

I think the implication is that Norimichi's constant wondering of "what if" kept culiminating inside the glass ball, until it finally exploded in a shower of "possibilities" in the finale. And each child saw in those shards the different outcomes that could have been, had he or she made a different choice.

Yusuke saw that he could have enjoyed the festival with Nazuna, had he just been brave enough to accept her date.

Nazuna saw what could have happened, had she and Norimichi run away to Tokyo (Nazuna, like in the 1993 movie, actually had no intention of running away; she was just acting on a childish whim).

And Norimichi saw that, had he "saved" Nazuna, they could actually have had a romantic ending.

The movie ended back in "reality", with the kids back in school after the summer holidays. The teacher didn't read out Nazuna's name during roll call, because she has already moved away with her mother. Yusuke's name was read out, so he's there in class. Norimichi, however, isn't.

The consensus on some forums is that Norimichi decided in the end to be brave, and he skipped school to find Nazuna.