Yukikaze was also a repeat. We played that episode something like 4 years ago, but couldn't remember where we'd gotten up to, so we started again....
5cm per Second is Makoto Shinkai just taking the pi$$. Having done the same thing for
Voices of a Distant Star and
Beyond the Clouds, The Promised Place, he's now done without even the vaguest necessity of having a gimmick (such as mecha battles against amorphous aliens and mysterious giant towers in fictitious communist republics) and given us a long, staccato train ride.... It still looks awesomely beautiful, like almost everything he does, but I felt a little disappointed that he wasn't trying anything new in terms of character interplay....
Winter Garden is mürrisch Charat. And even when Rabi-en-Rose appeared for a second, I bet there were people watching who still didn't know it had anything to do with DGC....
This, of course, is my saying that I liked what was played, but it was still a little on the slow side.
Yukikaze is a total illegitim. The jet's AI, not the show.