Weathering with You is writer and director, Makoto Shinkai’s, follow up to 2016’s Your Name. His next project had big shoes to fill as Your Name boasts a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and holds the title of highest grossing anime of all time after surpassing Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. Fortunately, Weathering with You is a worthy follow up with its lovely animation, touching story of young love, and commentary on the world around us.
Weathering with You follows 16-year-old, Hodaka (voiced by Kotaro Daigo), as he starts a new life in Tokyo, which is suffering a perpetual rainfall. He arrives to find some rough times, each day having to find a new place to stay and struggling to find work as a minor without a student identification card. After falling asleep near a McDonald’s stand, Hina (voiced by Nana Mori) brings him a burger. That act of kindness makes it the best meal he can remember. With that bright moment, he soon finds a live in job as an assistant to a journalism company that focuses in supernatural events, which is quite popular at the time due to the long-haunting inclement weather. While on the job, he runs into Hina again and helps her out of a tough situation. The two of them quickly grow close, and Hodaka realizes that Hina is his personal sunshine. She is actually a sunshine girl with the supernatural ability to bring sunlight to a small area for a brief time, an ability that the two of them exploit to help make money for Hina, who is taking care of her younger brother on her own. The two of them grow independently and together, developing a relationship that is soon tested. When it’s discovered what happens to sunshine girls, questions are raised about how the two lovers can make it through the trials ahead of them.
The animation style and quality of Weathering with You are both top notch. In a film focusing on the weather for both plot and mood, the world itself is an important character. For that reason, we often see the world in 3D to bring it to life. We see raindrops fall and completely envelop the world, to the point of flooding in some instances. These moments that showcase a 3D world are seamlessly integrated with the 2D characters on the few occasions they are shown at the same time, creating an all-encompassing environment that allows viewers to experience what the characters experience. These scenes make the moments of sunlight brought by Hina all the more magical. The warm colors provide an embracing contrast that lights the days and moods of all those graced by it.
While Hina brings physical sunlight to the world, she, herself, is the sunlight to Hodaka. While many coming of age stories of young lovers involve some rapidly developing relationship that makes unrealistic bounds, Weathering with You, includes powerful moments where viewers can see the relationship blossom. It does make its leaps with young people being jumpy, but there are several moments where you truly feel for Hodaka and Hina. We see the pair spending time with Hina’s brother, working together to bring out the sun, and having fun while they do it. While it moves fast, the relationship does form throughout the course of the film. They spend life together in a story where decisions that the characters make drastically impact the world around them.
These decisions also offer commentary on us and our lives. The weather and characters in this film ask viewers about the power of the choices we make and the perspective we choose to keep. In a world plagued by rain, they choose to make their sun. It is saying that we, as individuals, might not always have a fair hand dealt, but we can choose to make the best of it. Choices like that often have the power to make a positive impact, and this film tells that story as much as any other. It definitely provided food for thought.
Weathering with You shines brightly. It is a beautifully animated world filled with complex characters that tell a story of love and growth. Makoto Shinkai has crafted a great follow up to Your Name with plenty to offer its audience.