today i watched Kotonoha no Niwa and Aura: Maryuinkoga Saigo no Tatakai while knitting a scarf and i think
kotonoha no niwa was super underwhelming, the animation and art was great but, the story and characters were really lacking, probably because it was only 45 minutes long? I ddunno, the character development and “romance” felt contrived and by the end of the movie I barely cared enough about the main characters so when they started screaming and crying at eachother I was like “well…okay!”  I’m also starting to get a little tired of how samey makoto shinkai’s movies are i think?? 
Aura was a lot better, I enjoyed it way more and thought that it was p much everything the Chuunibyou series should have been, but it was not without problems
the character designs and art were kinda bland to me, and i felt like they could have done a lot more interesting things with how it was animated, that’s probably one thing that Chuunibyou did better actually?
there was a p unnecessary scene showing the main girl’s tits at various angles for like 10 seconds when she was walked in on in the bathroom (very original) and it just kinda seemed like it was thrown in there for kicks. i don’t mind nudity or sexuality in media if it’s handled in a reasonable way (aka not how it was handled in elfen lied hauhuashahs tits and piss scenes galore, that show is garbage) but that was just obviously put in there to sell more blurays and there was no need for it at all lol
but with shows like elfen lied ofc people are going to see that and think “it has nudity in it so i guess it must be a mature cartoon o_o!! this is so adult!! and progressive!!” whatever tho
I really liked how it showed the “darker” side of the themes that chuunibyou deals with, without being excessively dark and try-hard 
it added more weight to the character interactions, which made a lot of the scenes seem much more heartfelt and intense
I was expecting the main guy to be another dull self-insert character, but he turned out to be much more complex than that, it was surprising!!
instead of just dumping all the info about his “dark past” in the first 10 or 20 minutes, it was hinted at throughout the movie in clever ways which built up to a pretty powerful conclusion 
the main girl was a tiny bit more shallow, but in a way that seemed natural, as she was p much putting on an act through most of the movie, but there were a lot of parts where her humanity showed through, like during the bullying scenes, and it added more depth to her character. it was subtle for the most part but it worked i guess. 
the climatic scene with all the desks on top of the roof was very surreal and almost seemed kind of out of place with the rest of the movie? I was almost expecting there to be a huge twist where it was revealed that she was ACTUALLY a magical being the whole time, or whatever. i feel like if the earlier parts of the movie had more of a whimsical presentation, it would have been more fitting. most of the movie was pretty grounded, even with the way it showed the ridiculous ways the girl acted, which i guess was to keep a more serious tone, but i feel like it could have been better with more creative imagery, idk, it’s hard to explain
despite that, i really liked the ending. the kiss scene at the end made me blush a lot, lol. i liked it! i would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good drama/romance, i think u would enjoy it