The success of Departures led to the establishment of tourist attractions at sites connected to the film and increased interest in encoffining ceremonies, as well as adaptation of the story for various media, including manga and a stage play.

Assuming it to be a job in a travel agency, he goes to the interview at the NK Agent office and learns from the secretary, Yuriko Kamimura (Kimiko Yo), that he will be preparing bodies for cremation in a ceremony known as encoffinment.

Though he faces social ostracism, Daigo refuses to quit, even after Mika discovers a training DVD in which he plays a corpse and leaves him to return to her parents' home in Tokyo.

[d][11] Among the books he read was Shinmon Aoki's autobiographical Coffinman: The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician (納棺夫日記, Nōkanfu Nikki),[e] which exposed Motoki to the world of the nōkanshi for the first time.

[15] Takita, who had begun his career in the pink film genre before entering mainstream filmmaking in 1986 with Comic Magazine,[g] took on the director's role in 2006, after producer Toshiaki Nakazawa presented him with the first draft of the script.

[21] Aoki believed the film's humanistic approach did away with the religious aspects that were central to the book—the emphasis on maintaining connections between the living and the dead that he felt only religion could provide—and refused to allow his name and that of his book to be used.

[24] Both feature a protagonist who endures uneasiness and prejudice because of his job as a nōkanshi,[22] undergoes personal growth as a result of his experiences, and finds new meaning in life when confronted with death.

[28] Other differences included moving the setting from Toyoma to Yamagata for filming convenience, making the "letter-stone" a greater part of the plot,[29] and an avoidance of heavier scenes, such as religious ones and one in which Aoki talks of seeing "light" in a swarm of maggots.

[39] Negotiations were slow, as many local property owners lost interest after learning that the filming would involve funeral scenes; those who agreed insisted that shooting take place outside of business hours.

[40] Toyama was both the setting of Coffinman and Takita's home prefecture, but filming was done in Yamagata; this was largely because the national Nōkan Association, headquartered in Hokkaido, had a branch office in Sakata.

[51] Viewers see that the ceremonies are not simply about preparing the body, but also about "bring[ing] dignity to death, respect to the deceased and solace to those who grieve", through which the encoffiners are able to help repair broken family ties and heal damage done to those left behind.

[61]Byrnes found that Departures used the symbol of the cherry blossom, a flower which blooms after the winter only to wither soon afterwards, to represent the transience of life; through this understanding, he wrote, Japanese people attempt to define their own existence.

[63] The colour white, manifested through snow, chrysanthemums, and other objects, is prominent in the film; Okuyama suggests that this, together with the classical music and ritualized hand gestures, represents the sacredness and purity of the death ceremonies.

[63] Ultimately it is through his work with the dead that Daigo finds fulfilment, and, as Peter Howell of the Toronto Star concluded, viewers realize that "death may be the termination of a life, but it's not the end of humanity".

[22] Ebert writes that, as with other Japanese films such as Tokyo Story (Yasujirō Ozu; 1953) and The Funeral (Juzo Itami; 1984), Departures focuses on the effect of death on the survivors; the afterlife is not given much discussion.

[77] Executive producer Yasuhiro Mase credited this success to the effects of the Great Recession on Japan: viewers who were seeking employment after recently being downsized empathized with Daigo.

[85] On 10 September 2008, three days before the Japanese premiere of Departures, a soundtrack album for the film—containing nineteen tracks from the film and featuring an orchestral performance by members of the Tokyo Metropolitan and NHK Symphony Orchestras—was released by Universal Music Japan.

[93] A North American DVD edition of Departures, including an interview with the director, was released by Koch Vision on 12 January 2010; the film was not dubbed, but rather presented with Japanese audio and English subtitles.

Franck Tabouring of DVD Verdict was highly complimentary toward the film and the digital transfer, considering its visuals clean and sharp and the audio (particularly the music) "a pleasure to listen to".

[96] Another writer for the website, Jeremy Mathews, advised readers to "Skip It", finding the DVD an apt presentation of the source material—which he considered to "reduce itself to clumsy, mug-filled attempts at broad comedy and awkward, repetitive tear-jerker scenes".

[106] Following the success of Departures at the Academy Awards, critic Saburō Kawamoto found the film to show a Japan that the Japanese could relate to, in that, in a nation whose customs put great weight on visits to ancestral graves,[l] a death was always a family affair.

[108] Media critic Sadao Yamane [ja] found a moving beauty in the dextrous hand movements Sasaki teaches Daigo for preparing bodies, and believed that a prior reading of the original script would deepen the viewer's understanding of the action.

[63] In a three-and-a-half star review, Claudia Puig of USA Today described Departures as a "beautifully composed" film which, although predictable, was "emotional, poignant" and "profoundly affecting".

[115] Mike Scott gave the film three and a half stars out of four, finding that it was "a surprisingly uplifting examination of life and loss", with humour which perfectly complemented the "moving and meaningful story", but lent itself to characters "mug[ging] for the camera".

[67] Meanwhile, Kevin Maher of The Times described Departures as a "verklempt comedy" with wearisome "push-button crying", though he considered it saved by the quality of the acting, "stately" directing, and "dreamy" soundtrack.

[117] Philip Kennicott wrote in The Washington Post that the film was "as polished as it is heavy-handed", predictable yet ready to break taboos, immersed in death yet incapable of escaping "the maddening Japanese taste for sentimentality".

[119] Paatsch gave Departures three stars out of five, describing it as a "quaintly mournful flick" that "unfolds with a delicacy and precision that slowly captivates the viewer" but considering some scenes, such as the montage, "needlessly showy flourishes".

Club's Keith Phipps gave Departures a C−, writing that though it featured "handsome shots of provincial life" and encoffining scenes with a "poetic quality", ultimately the film "drips from one overstated emotion to the next".

[123] Adams gave Departures two out of four stars, praising the emotionally and visually arresting scenes of encoffinments and "loving attention to the textures, tastes and behaviours of semi-rural Japan" but condemning the predictability of the plot; he wrote that "Forty-five minutes in, [viewers have] prepared a mental checklist of every turn that Daigo Kobayashi will face, then negotiate – and be danged if Takita doesn't deliver on every one".

[a][125] Departures was not expected to win, owing to strong competition from the Israeli and French submissions (Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir and Laurent Cantet's The Class, respectively), but was ultimately the victor at the February 2009 ceremony.