Jussi Hulkkonen’s review published on Letterboxd:
Jumping into action with a prologue of sorts that doesn't so much explain as blurt out the conceit of this body-swapping romance, the film rather quickly settles down into a more mundane comedic tone that mines the awkwardness of its premise—handily ignoring the weightier implications of its transgender resonances—for maximum hi-jinx and tittering laughter. Fortunately it's clear Shinkai has more on his mind, developing his teenage protagonists with a patience and emotional depth that exceeds the wacky comedic tone that dominates the film's first half, while also weaving in the cultural/historical threads that lend the film a scope and heft which rises to the fore as the story moves from body-swap comedy to epic tragedy.
As a result of these connective tissues Shinkai forms—lending resonance to the sci-fi conceit with its connection to Shinto beliefs and matrilineal heritage and grounding the cutesy comedy in character from the outset—the turn to weighty drama and fated romance feels like natural evolution, the latent romance blooming into full flower with the gravity of the tragedy finally drawing together the separate threads and guiding the film into its apocalyptic finale with a confident swoon of tear-jerking sentiment that finally and effectively finds its mark with the move to a mood of bittersweet longing and undefined grief that dominates the film's latter half.
Amid the dizzying escalation of the apocalyptic stakes—resonantly echoing the lingering national trauma of the 2011 disaster—and the stunning creativity of Shinkai's gorgeous animation, the film never loses sight of its empathetic humanity, a powerful thematic core that insists on the importance of connection, to historical and cultural lineages, an appreciation of an reverence for our world and its beauty, as well as an empathetic understanding of others. While primarily figured here in the context of adolescent maturation, moving from the egocentricism of teenage years to an adult understanding of others as distinct individuals, the film's consideration of connection, empathy, and purpose beyond one's own happiness comes to carry a universal resonance, given the potent connections drawn to tradition and the impermanence of human life.