YI JIAN’s review published on Letterboxd:
It's the feeling of never wanting a dream to end, desperately trying to go back to sleep hoping that your dream would somehow pick up where it had left off.
But you know very well that it won't. First you'll forget the details. What shirt you were wearing, the exact words you said or wanted to say. Her hand on your palm that felt so tangible just a few seconds ago, reduced to a cold sensation that served as nothing but a reminder of the warmth that was once there.
Then the timeline becomes murky, sequences become knotted up -- like how mitsuha's grandmother had so wisely put it: Musubi dayo. Time is a knot. The location comes before the journey there, cause and effect all collapse in an instant.
You can't remember the weather, or the exact time of day. It felt golden, the sun may or may not be present, was her eyes sparkling because of the comet? Why yes, there was a comet slowly crawling up above, leaving a trail of sparkling dust behind like something out of a desktop wallpaper. The comet traveled all across the galaxy to arrive on earth, like how you had traveled all across the country to meet----
To meet who, again? Ah, all is lost now, absolutely irrevocable. What's left is a lingering sadness which reason you had forgotten. A need to remember someone dear, a stroke of marker pen on your palm and a simple wish for company. How cruel it is for our dream to force itself away from us, beyond our control.
