Weathering With You (2019)
With legendary anime director, Hayao Miyazaki stepping down the search was on to see "Who is the next Hayao Miyazaki?" The first name that came to many people's minds was Makoto Shinkai. Starting out making impressive anime shorts on his own which got people talking Makoto Shinkai would get more and more people behind him releasing some of the most popular and acclaimed anime films of the 2000's finally leading to 2016's Your Name. Your Name proved to be a worldwide sensation with many including myself calling it an instant classic (the fact that it missed that years Academy Awards still haunts me). Your Name made headlines becoming not just the highest-grossing anime film of all time but the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time. With not just the anime community but the world with their eyes on him, everyone waited to see what Makoto Shinkai would do next, that would be Weathering With You. Hodaka Morishima (Kotaro Daigo) is a high school student who finally decides to follow his dream and run away to Tokyo. Things are rough at first but eventually, Hodaka finds his footing getting a job writing about local superstitions for a man named Keisuke Suga (Shun Oguri) and befriends a girl by the name of Hina Amano (Nana Mori) who is caring for her younger brother Nagi (Sakura Kiryu). They learn that Hina has the unique ability to control the weather allowing the sun to come up for a short time anywhere she wants which the kids soon start to profit on considering Tokyo is facing some of the hardest rains in history. Everything seems to be going perfect but things start to turn as some darker elements to her powers come to light, putting not just Hina but the entire city at risk.
Before we can jump into the specifics of this film lets get the obvious out of the way, this is a Makoto Shinkai film so it comes as no surprise that it is absolutely stunning. More than any other filmmaker Makoto Shinkai has mastered building and showcasing the environment of a big city, just like how Miyazaki is a master at showing the rural areas of Japan and breathing an authentic life into them, Shinkai does the same with the big city. There is life in these streets and skyscrapers, the same energy you feel when you are downtown in a major city comes through in his films and their settings. To capture this spiritual reality in animation requires not just solid animation but a real x-factor that can't be described, there has to be an authenticity to the experience of this environment more than just recreating real-world locations (which is something Shinkai also has become known for). More than just recreating the beautiful visuals of Tokyo that Shinkai showcased in Your Name, he pushes the visuals to now include almost constant rain which is not a common visual for animation. Rain requires so much more work and effort creating constant movement on nearly the entire scene also playing with the physics of everything on the screen. Due to this, the visuals in this film are unlike any other anime film I have seen. Yet even in the rain this is a really stunning film perfectly showcasing what this medium can offer in environments not often seen through it continuing to add impressive and unique aesthetics to the filmography of Makoto Shinkai. The music by Radwimps also was really beautiful, mixing an elegant score with J-Pop I loved the soundtrack this movie built and only helped breath more life into this world.
Being a Makoto Shinkai film there is also plenty of mythology and powers present in the film. Shinkai is far from new to taking elements like this and working it into a more grounded emotional story and overall I think he handled the mythos of this film skillfully. Sure like typical Shinkai he has his moments where he gets a bit lost in the inner workings of what is happening and how everything works especially towards the end. This was the one mark I had against Your Name especially thinking about it afterward, the film had cool ideas but didn't really make sense when you thought about it. Weathering With You has those moments where it gets a bit lost but overall it does work and does hold up from a plot perspective as long as you can buy in and go with the mythos it provides. The actual story of family and freedom also really worked for me, this is another Shinkai film that made me tear up as I watched it as it has some moments of just heartbreaking emotion.
Being a Makoto Shinkai film there is also plenty of mythology and powers present in the film. Shinkai is far from new to taking elements like this and working it into a more grounded emotional story and overall I think he handled the mythos of this film skillfully. Sure like typical Shinkai he has his moments where he gets a bit lost in the inner workings of what is happening and how everything works especially towards the end. This was the one mark I had against Your Name especially thinking about it afterward, the film had cool ideas but didn't really make sense when you thought about it. Weathering With You has those moments where it gets a bit lost but overall it does work and does hold up from a plot perspective as long as you can buy in and go with the mythos it provides. The actual story of family and freedom also really worked for me, this is another Shinkai film that made me tear up as I watched it as it has some moments of just heartbreaking emotion.
The characters are a big reason why this film worked so strongly on an emotional level also. Where the characters from Your Name were really likable and memorable for it the characters in this movie are way more interesting and captivating. Especially when it comes to the initial magic Hodaka faces as he arrives in Tokyo I connected with these characters on a deep emotional level as there strive to find happiness really connected with me. Hina and her drive to protect her younger brother and build a good life for them both also were quite effective and you really just want the best for these kids no matter how much they bite off more than they could chew. Their friendship spoke to me and overall these characters were perfect to engage us into this world and the plot this movie presented. Even the side characters were extremely likable, sure I can't say I ever got overly invested in the lives of Keisuke or his coworker Natsumi Suga (Tsubasa Honda) but they provided some great supporting humor and never took away from the emotions or main focus of the film.
As mentioned before, if there was one time when this film started to lose me it would be the third act. When it comes to concluding this story, the movie stumbles. It never fully lost me but there is a scene in a hotel where the characters share one more night of peace and happiness as everything falls apart around them which is just incredible, from that point on though the film tries way to hard to find a place between having emotional consequences for the plot up to that point and ending on a happy note and it just didn't fully come together. I hate to sound like a downer but seeing how this plot went in the third act there was no reason this needed to have a happy ending and I wish it wouldn't have tried to create one as it ruins some of the impacts of other scenes in this third act and the weight they carried.
Where I can't say Weathering With You is a complete masterpiece or the best work Makoto Shinkai has ever put out, it is another strong showing for the director. This is a compelling animated film that is both heartbreaking and entertaining that builds a wonderful world to explore and experience for better or worse. It once again breaths life and realism into a story embracing myth and fiction that all blends together beautifully. Sure the ending isn't the strongest but the road there really is remarkable and even my complaints with the ending are minor. I still walked away from this film impressed and excited knowing that the anime industry is stronger than ever. Not just do we have Makoto Shinkai creating modern classics but people like Masaaki Yuasa, Mamoru Hosoda, and Naoko Yamada are right alongside him. There isn't just one person who is going to become the next Hayao Miyazaki as no one can do what he did. No one can bring that passion and skill to those stories. Instead, we have an incredible group of anime directors telling their own stories in their own ways, the anime industry is thriving possibly more than ever, if you look at western animation and feel down seeing bland animation spit out for cheap laughs please do your best to weather the storm, the sun is out if you can find it and some of the best animated movies ever are being made.
As mentioned before, if there was one time when this film started to lose me it would be the third act. When it comes to concluding this story, the movie stumbles. It never fully lost me but there is a scene in a hotel where the characters share one more night of peace and happiness as everything falls apart around them which is just incredible, from that point on though the film tries way to hard to find a place between having emotional consequences for the plot up to that point and ending on a happy note and it just didn't fully come together. I hate to sound like a downer but seeing how this plot went in the third act there was no reason this needed to have a happy ending and I wish it wouldn't have tried to create one as it ruins some of the impacts of other scenes in this third act and the weight they carried.
Where I can't say Weathering With You is a complete masterpiece or the best work Makoto Shinkai has ever put out, it is another strong showing for the director. This is a compelling animated film that is both heartbreaking and entertaining that builds a wonderful world to explore and experience for better or worse. It once again breaths life and realism into a story embracing myth and fiction that all blends together beautifully. Sure the ending isn't the strongest but the road there really is remarkable and even my complaints with the ending are minor. I still walked away from this film impressed and excited knowing that the anime industry is stronger than ever. Not just do we have Makoto Shinkai creating modern classics but people like Masaaki Yuasa, Mamoru Hosoda, and Naoko Yamada are right alongside him. There isn't just one person who is going to become the next Hayao Miyazaki as no one can do what he did. No one can bring that passion and skill to those stories. Instead, we have an incredible group of anime directors telling their own stories in their own ways, the anime industry is thriving possibly more than ever, if you look at western animation and feel down seeing bland animation spit out for cheap laughs please do your best to weather the storm, the sun is out if you can find it and some of the best animated movies ever are being made.