Pasting this here as a review, since it was too long for a note on my profile.

!!!SPOILER WARNING!!!

You start to notice a formula when you watch a lot of these types of movies. You have the generic, average guy who randomly meets a girl. The girl is for some unknown reason entirely opposed to the thought of the guy having any positive qualities, and repeatedly calls him a pervert and acts like an asshole to him. The guy does a lot of positive things to help the girl and grow closer to her, and she starts to develop feelings for him, but still refuses to admit them to herself or anyone else. A misunderstanding of some sort happens, and the two get pushed away from each other just as they were about to fully open up to one another. Then we have the turning point, where the guy ends up in an accident, and the girl realises what she should have done differently. The girl corrects the error of her ways, the guy recovers, confessions are shared, and they live happily ever after. It also works the other way around, where the formula is gender switched and the guy is the idiot and the girl is the nice one.
You find this formula (with some slight changes here and there) in movies like A Silent Voice, Your Name, My Sister Momoko, Weathering With You, etc. Now, I'm not saying it's inherently a bad thing. I enjoy plenty of these movies for what they are, but when you start knowing what to look for, it becomes even more obvious when these cliches and tropes show up.
"Josee, the Tiger and the Fish" follows this formula to a tee. The guy saves the girl (who is in a wheelchair) from death, and instead of thanking him, she calls him a pervert and treats him like trash for no reason. You also have the generic side characters. Side character #1 - The loud and obnoxious best guy-friend of the main guy who hits on every woman he meets and thinks he is the absolute shit. Side character #2 - The romantic rival that barely has any screen time and only shows up to either make the main girl realise that she has feelings for the main guy, or to cause a misunderstanding on purpose by saying something messed up to one of the two protagonists. Side character #3 - The old parental figure that is really quirky and rude, and whose actions are portrayed as funny and non-problematic just because they are old. This character is always there to either stand between the two main characters, or help push them together. Side character #4 - The random stranger that becomes best friends with the main girl after a single conversation, and that serves as the entry-way for her into a more social life where she can start getting more friends. Side character #5 - The mentor figure of the main guy who is there to remind us that there is an additional conflict going on beside the two main characters' relationship.
The characters are pretty generic and forgettable in this movie, as you can probably tell by my lengthy description of the cliched archetypes they follow, but they still serve the purpose they are intended for in the film. Instead of interesting side-characters, we are treated to some very beautiful animation and some cell-shaded visuals (I think, at least it looks that way), bundled with some very sweet and emotional (although rushed) story and character development for the protagonists. Even though the main characters themselves aren't very memorable, the journey they go through is. Yes, it's tropey and rehashed from other stories, but it still hits heavy when you get to the meat of the story. The scenes where Josee is grieving over losing both her "servant" (it annoys me so much that she doesn't call him by his name) and her grandmother, as well as her dream and motivation for pursuing what she loves, all at the same time, are very beautiful and very nicely executed. It's very reminiscent of A Silent Voice where

Spoiler, click to view

the main protagonist falls off the balcony and ends up in the hospital after saving the main girl from committing suicide.

Again, a rehashed idea, but the way it is executed makes it stand out all the same.
It's refreshing to see a story like this where the characters are adults, and it also helps that there is the added element of one of the characters being disabled, which gives a new twist to the same story we have seen a thousand times before. It reminds me of I Want To Eat Your Pancreas in a way, except

Spoiler, click to view

it has a happy ending.

Next time I would like to see a movie where the guy is the disabled one and not the girl. It is always the girl. In A Silent Voice, the girl is deaf. In I Want To Eat Your Pancreas,

Spoiler, click to view

the girl is dying.

In Your Lie In April,

Spoiler, click to view

the girl is dying.

In My Sister Momoko, the girl is mentally challenged. You get the point. When is it the guy's turn??
I also wish that the fact the characters are adults would play more of a role in the story. There isn't really anything that makes me think of them as adults throughout the film. I'm so used to anime about high school students looking and sounding way older than they are, while working part time jobs, etc. There is really nothing new or different here. It's the same problem I felt with stuff like Golden Time, where the characters are in college, but it doesn't play into the story in any significant way. I feel the same way with non-slice of life shows in a high school setting too, where there is no reason for the characters to be as young as they are. I guess I just want to see more mature stories now that I'm getting older myself.
Overall, "Josee, the Tiger and the Fish" is a pretty generic film that follows a lot of tropes and a formula commonly found in anime romance movies of the last decade, but it still manages to pull off some emotional moments, and it brings a lot of heart to a formulaic and dying breed of films that desperately needs innovation. I'll give it a 6/10.

TL;DR

"Josee, the Tiger and the Fish" puts a lot of effort into staying true to a formula that has worked for years in the anime industry, but it still manages to creep in something fresh every once in a while. There is nothing here you haven't seen before, but you might find some new combinations of things you are already previously familiar with, that will make you enjoy the film nonetheless. The characters are pretty unlikeable, and the development doesn't feel as natural as it should, as the film is plagued with the montage problem that nearly all these types of movies have, where a lot of the character development happens in the span of a few minutes that marks several weeks or months in in-universe time, but there is still a lot to love here, whether it be the soundtrack, visuals, animation or tear-jerking themes of loss and self-acceptance. 6/10