Off course this won't be spoiler free - because to explain this anime, it is a beautiful work of art in it's simple story telling and it's stunning gorgeous visual. It is a experience as one who never tasted ocean water cannot grasp the taste until them they self touch the water and taste it. Then they can understand the saltiness of the water. Though simple, it is complex at the same time.
I wanted to confirm my love for this anime before I decided to write a review on it. I first watched it online and I fell in love with it. I will say I can understand many won't like Josee at first since she isn't someone very likable right away. Though maybe you probably still won't like her after a bit but that's just on you. I personally liked her and her character growth throughout the show. She is a simple easy to read character on her emotional level but yet at the same time, the world she lives in is a complex world I cannot understand.
What I mean by this is that Josee is someone who is born without ever knowing how to walk (literally). She was born crippled and to be so limited to what you can do, to try to reach for things that are just out of reach, how that world and that life I will never know.
The overall theme is pretty simple in that it is beautiful. It is about learning to pursue your dream, by running towards your goal. How Josee put it that how scary it is to reach for something... that dream of pursing something that just out of your reach is a scary thing. To have dreams that just seem too far out of reach. Some people can dream and pursue it with no problem, while others of us find others who has dream and we follow them making those our dreams.
We see as the story progress that our main guy (Tsuneo) has a hard time trying to understand Josee. Since all his life he can easily pursue his dream. He works hard for it and got basically everything he longed for while Josee always struggled to reach a few inches higher for she can easily fall. How scary it is for her to dream things that seems too far out of reach. It isn't until we get to part way through the show that we see that he finally starts to see his whole world crumple. His dreams come crashing down and everything he longed for seems too far out of reach. And how scary it is to dream because when we can't reach them, it is such a painful experience. You won't know unless you ever had dream of something big.
Until he learn to rely on her to help him as she relied on him to her, they both give each other the push they needed. Life is not about one's own journey, it is about the people we meet along the way to help us guild us, lead us, and push us. There will be those who we helped and those who helped us, because life is a journey taken along the way to meeting and connecting with others. Just as fish school together, so do human need one another.
So in it's simplicity, it is beautifully well made. I don't expect everyone to love it but I absolutely loved this. The music was always great and the voice acting was beautiful. It has some funny moments and sad moments (not enough to make you cry). It is beautiful in the most simple way that works for what it wanted to present. The people we meet along the way, those who helped us and gave us a push when we needed one. Sometimes we may feel like everyone is against us but let us not forget those who were there behind us, just as Tsuneo was there pushing Josee to see the world she didn't know about.
Absolutely love it and I don't care if you guys hate it or downvote this for whatever reason, but this is my personal review of how much I adore this show.