Yeah Shinkai is like Takahata's whiny never grew out of teenage angst cousin. He's super overrated.

If Gravity wasn't so well directed the flaws of that movie would be a lot more glaring. I still enjoyed it a lot but realized the star of the movie was how it was executed not how it was written.

I'm happy to see Takahata get the attention he deserves, and it looks like this film is getting a far wider release than I originally expected too! :)

I'm sure your strawman would also be complaining about how "Flowers of Evil" was really terrible, cause the characters were ugly and pacing too slow, lol.

If you want to dig deeper I'd recommend seeking out "Gauche the Cellist" (sometimes known as Goshu the Cellist). Somewhat more silly but just as gentle and deep.