'The Garden of Words' was the kind of film that, if it wasn't your thing, you'd know within the first two minutes. The slow pacing would have you tapping out quickly.
But for those who connected with it—even just a little—the emotional pull of its atmosphere became irresistible.
Makoto Shinkai's films never relied on complex plots.
'The Garden of Words': student-teacher romance.
'5 Centimeters per Second': long-distance love.
'Your Name': time-travel romance.
'Weathering With You': a fateful encounter between an ordinary boy and a girl with supernatural powers.
What truly captivated viewers was how he used rich inner monologues and his signature visual style to create immersive emotional landscapes.
So far, 'The Garden of Words' was just a story about a truant boy meeting a woman skipping work in a rainy park. But by now, the audience could feel it—the spark, the stirrings of a quiet romance.
This time, when they met again, the woman praised his shoe designs.
And then, the story began hinting—softly, but clearly—at the woman's personal struggles.
She'd recently gone through a breakup and was visibly shaken. Her stress had triggered psychosomatic symptoms—loss of taste.
She was even preparing to resign from her job to reset.
[Then quit already!]
[Screw that job!]
[Dumped by a jerk? Time for a fresh start.]
Xia Wenhao found himself full of anticipation now.
The story had shifted into a "truant boy meets heartbroken woman on rainy days" vibe.
Now it was July.
Their quiet rendezvous in the rain had already gone on for a full month.
Struggling with a shoe design, Akizuki asked the woman for a favor.
He wanted to measure her feet—to use them as a model for his first handmade pair of shoes.
[You sly dog.]
[Why didn't I think of that excuse?!]
Xia Wenhao's eyes widened.
Whispers began stirring throughout the quiet theater.
And then, on-screen—
The woman took off her shoes, revealing pale, smooth legs.
Akizuki began carefully measuring her foot with precision.
The focused boy.
The woman watching him was smiling.
The tension, the intimacy—it was palpable.
Xia Wenhao sat there, full of envy.
[Mom, I want to be a shoemaker!]
[Wait, people get to touch girls' feet and call it their job? And I chose IT?!]
[I'm in my twenties, single, and already losing hair. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!]
No wonder people in Su Yan's past life called this movie "The Garden of Foot Fetish."
"I… I just can't keep walking forward anymore."
The woman stood barefoot on the bench in the pavilion, one foot on Akizuki's sketchpad.
As he traced her outline, she spoke softly.
"At work?"
"Yes… and no." Her voice trembled with melancholy.
[Is this… depression?]
Xia Wenhao's mouth opened slightly, realization dawning.
Avoiding work. Hiding in a rainy park. Talking to a stranger. Speaking in cryptic poetry.
She wasn't sharing her pain with anyone familiar.
Only with a boy who didn't know her history.
Xia Wenhao could relate.
He worked overtime constantly. Woke up each day dreading work.
Sigh.
The scene shifted to her perspective.
Rain or shine, she sat in that pavilion.
But only on rainy days did the boy appear.
Akizuki, having gotten her foot measurements, now had a goal:
To make his first pair of shoes—for her.
Then came August.
The rainy season ended.
They stopped seeing each other.
But Akizuki poured himself into his shoemaking.
Xia Wenhao sighed.
[Such a teenage thing to do.]
[He only skips school when it rains? As if truancy had rules?]
[She's been waiting in that pavilion, and you're at home being a good student? L bro.]
The story pressed on.
The woman finally quit her job.
But instead of heading to the park…
She went to a school.
Xia Wenhao's heart skipped a beat.
Whispers broke out all over the theater.
"No way…"
"Is she…?"
"Seriously???"
"Akizuki wears a school uniform every time! She had to know who he was!"
And sure enough—
She was a teacher at that school.
No wonder Akizuki felt like he'd seen her before. Even if she hadn't taught him directly, they must've passed each other in the hallways.
Student-teacher romance?!
[Oh boy.]
And the real kicker?
She ran into Akizuki during her resignation process.
Now Xia Wenhao could feel the story veering into unpredictable territory.
The reason for her resignation was revealed:
A rumor that she had a romantic entanglement with a student's boyfriend.
It spread through the school like wildfire.
That's why she was so mentally exhausted.
Why did she dread going to work?
Why did she seem on the edge of collapse?
Even if the rumors weren't true, once gossip spreads, who can clear their name?
In Su Yan's past life, the anime had shown Akizuki planning to confront the senior student who started the rumor about Yukino.
After all, by then, he was already in love with her.
It made sense.
In the original, Akizuki got beaten up during that confrontation.
But in this version, Su Yan changed it.
Akizuki won the fight.
Because in the Xia Nation version?
There's no way Su Yan's fans would accept him playing a character who loses in a brawl.
Plus, going up against a group knowing you might lose was already kind of reckless.
And losing anyway would make the character seem both impulsive and weak—not a good combo.
Xia Wenhao felt conflicted.
Akizuki wasn't mature, but wasn't that what made him relatable?
That was youth.
And Yukino?
She was that unforgettable first love—everyone has one.
At that age, we all did irrational things for the people we loved.
By now, Xia Wenhao resonated deeply with the male lead.
And since Yukino had resigned, their connection was no longer technically a student-teacher relationship.
A 12-year age gap?
[Please.]
[Come on, Su Yan. Let him confess already!]
The story, however, kept holding back—restraining the characters' emotions, just as it had been building the audience's.
Both needed a release.
And then—it came.
For the first time, Akizuki didn't show up at the pavilion on a rainy day.
Yukino did.
She was there, seemingly… waiting.
"A faint clap of thunder,
Clouded skies,
Even if rain doesn't come,
I'll stay here with you."
Akizuki stepped forward, facing her.
He repeated her poem.
"Correct. That's the answer."
The two lines—hers and his—finally joined.
Thunder rumbled.
After a month-long drought, it began to rain heavily.
Xia Wenhao felt a surge of anticipation.
The loudest rain, the strongest wind, soaked them to the bone.
The skies themselves seemed to root for their connection.
To avoid catching a cold, Yukino brought Akizuki to her apartment.
He used her kitchen to cook a meal.
She helped dry his clothes.
The vibe? Unmistakably romantic.
In the theater, couples were now holding hands tightly.
"Right now…"
"This very moment…"
"Might be the happiest…"
"Might be the happiest."
The two leads' overlapping thoughts echoed.
Xia Wenhao couldn't help but grin.
[Su Yan, you magnificent bastard.]
[I'm satisfied. Completely.]
To Xia Wenhao, there was only one real way to judge a romance movie:
Did it move you?
Forget setups and gimmicks. If a story didn't resonate, it was meaningless.
And 'The Garden of Words'?
He hadn't blinked once.
"Miss Yukino."
Akizuki, holding a cup of coffee, looked at her as she washed dishes.
"I think… I've fallen in love with you."
Bang.
Xia Wenhao's heart raced.
In the film, Yukino turned, shocked.
Then she smiled.
"It's not Miss Yukino… It's Teacher Yukino."
Xia Wenhao's face froze.
[...Seriously?]
[Are you kidding me right now, Su Yan?!]
[She quit, and you're pulling the 'teacher' card now?!]
[We've sat through the whole movie waiting for this—you know EXACTLY what we wanted!]
[You didn't need to give us a full-blown confession, but this?! This is betrayal!]
He could already sense something wasn't right.
The tension had built so carefully, and now—
There was nowhere for the emotion to go.
Yukino said she was leaving the city.
She thanked him for being there when she was lost.
Akizuki listened quietly.
Then stood up and said goodbye, voice calm.
But everyone knew.
He was hurt.
Not by the rejection—by the way she rejected him.
"Teacher," huh?
The camera followed him down the spiral staircase.
Wind and rain battered his clothes.
Suddenly—
A powerful, emotional BGM erupted.
The opening notes of 'Rain' played.
And in that moment, everyone in the theater felt it.
"A faint clap of thunder,
Clouded skies,
Even if rain doesn't come,
I'll stay here with you."
Akizuki's voice echoed again.
At that very second, Yukino ran.
The kettle whistled behind her.
She dashed barefoot down the hallway, her silhouette becoming iconic in that instant.
[RUN!!]
Xia Wenhao was on edge.
The classic J-drama "running scene," cliché in Su Yan's past life, had landed with full emotional impact here.
It was a catharsis.
Yukino knew—
If she didn't speak now, she'd never get another chance.
If she lied to Akizuki as she had to everyone else, she'd regret it forever.
She found him at the landing.
They faced each other—one step apart, soaked.
His anger.
Her fear.
Girls in the audience were now squeezing their boyfriends' hands.
Everyone knew what was coming.
The film's most iconic monologue.
The entire movie had built to this.
With Rain swelling in the background, the words struck home:
"Forget what I said earlier. I don't actually love you.
You drink beer first thing in the morning, spout cryptic poetry, never talk about yourself—but keep pulling secrets out of me.
You knew we were teacher and student all along, didn't you?"
"If I'd known it'd end like this, I never would've told you my dreams.
You think it's easy to dismiss a kid's feelings? That we don't take them seriously?"
"All my hopes, my admiration—it was all one-sided.
If you hated me, you should've just said so.
Told me to go back to school.
Said I disgusted you.
But no, you kept it all inside, pretended like nothing was wrong.
So fine.
Be like that.
Stay alone for the rest of your life."
Akizuki choked in shock.
Yukino's silent tears.
This was the climax.
The crescendo of Rain continued.
Yukino could no longer hold back her sobs.
She ran forward and threw her arms around him.
Sunlight pierced the clouds.
Rain and light poured over the spiral staircase.
"Every day… I dressed and tried to go to work.
But I couldn't take that step.
It was you… who gave me the strength to move forward."
Her words—simple, fragmented—spoke volumes.
She never said "I love you."
But her actions—her embrace, her voice, her tears—said everything.
The final image:
The two of them, crying in each other's arms, rain and sunlight mingling.
Xia Wenhao's eyes turned red.
That scene—just 20 seconds long—was emotionally overwhelming.
A slow, quiet film had exploded with everything it had held back.
Just like '5 Centimeters per Second', which spent an hour building to the protagonist's faint smile at the end...
That was the Makoto Shinkai formula.
And now, Rain played in full.
Both the theme and the ending song.
The film ended abruptly.
No mention of their future.
But Su Yan left something even better:
The emotion.
Xia Wenhao sat silently, heart aching.
He felt regret.
Akizuki's final words were childish. Immature.
But that was what made him so real.
His feelings for Yukino, her fear of life, her reliance on him—everything had finally burst out.
The theater was dead silent.
Everyone was still lost in that final, heart-wrenching moment.